It’s a job not without its challenges but the six months that Karin Bachman has been the president of the Bulkley Valley Teacher’s Union (BVTU) have been generally smooth.
Bachman put her name in the running for the presidential title and won it last August. It was a move up from her last post as vice-president for the union.
She believed that her experience as a Bulkley Valley teacher and long-time member of the union executive would make her a good candidate.
She has been a teacher her entire adult life and spent 20 years at Lake Kathlyn Elementary. She only retired from that position last June.
“I’m enjoying the challenge of learning new things,” she said. “It’s been a real smooth six months and there are always can be things that come up you have to deal with but for the most part the Bulkley Valley is an excellent school district.”
As a union leader for the district, she does point out some challenges teachers are facing. Among those are maintaining teacher staffing levels.
“The school district is doing their best to maintain teacher staffing levels without cutting teaching staff, as many other districts in the province have done,” she said. “However, teachers in the Bulkley Valley are stretched extensively in being able to meet the needs of all students.”
She said they’ve found increasing numbers of students with challenges.
That naturally ties into the funding formulas for schools from the province.
“Our school district here is in better shape financially than a lot of school districts in the province,” she noted, but added the government has not been funding schools in the province to the level that they used to a decade ago.
“That’s a concern for teachers in the whole province.”
According to a British Columbia Teacher Federation pamphlet, funding problems in education could be solved if funding was restored to the same ratio in 2001-02 of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. That would mean a funding level of $6.64 billion.
Alternatively, the provincial Ministry of Education has said that B.C.’s per-student funding has hit new highs at $8,341, a growth of $159 from the previous school year’s operating grants.
Education minister Margaret MacDiarmid said the government invests $24.2 million every school day.
Yet whatever the challenges education faces, the end goal is one that can’t be disputed.
“We’re working hard everyday to make school the best we can for every kid,” said Bachman.