Upcoming GMM Dates

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At our September 20th GMM, the following dates for General Membership Meetings were approved by membership.

October 25, 2025

November 15, 2025

December 13, 2025

January 17, 2026

February 7, 2026

March 7, 2026

April 25, 2026

May 23, 2026

June 13, 2026

 

These dates can also be found in the upcoming events calendar.

 

In Solidarity,

Tracey

 

 

National Truth and Reconciliation Day – Tuesday, September 30, 2025

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Tuesday, September 30, 2025 is National Truth and Reconciliation Day.

Since 2013, September 30 has been commemorated as “Orange Shirt Day”, inspired by the story of residential school survivor Phyllis Jack Webstad.

As a young girl, Phyllis was gifted a new orange shirt by her grandmother before she was taken to a B.C. residential school. The shirt was confiscated and destroyed by her teacher on the first day of classes. The story has come to symbolize the colonial assimilation goals of the residential school system.

 

Please wear an orange shirt to work on tomorrow, September 30, 2025 to commemorate the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.

 

Welcome Back

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Welcome to the 2025-2026 School Year!

I’ve been getting a lot of questions so I thought I would put this out.

  • Please remember that you are hourly employees, not salaried. You are only paid for the time that you are scheduled.  Don’t work for free, you are not covered for activities that you do outside of your scheduled hours and role (ie coaching, staff meetings that run longer than your hours, etc.).
  • Make sure that you are wearing the PPE/safety gear provided. If it does not fit, there isn’t enough or it isn’t suitable, contact your supervisor to have it rectified.
  • Make sure you are taking your breaks and your unpaid / uninterrupted lunch. You need this time to decompress and get away from the stress of your job.
  • Make sure that you are filling out incident reports every time. If you don’t fill them out, the board assumes that everything is okay, and you don’t need any additional help. If you are attacked by a student (identified or not), it is workplace violence.
  • Make sure you are reading safety plans before working with a student. If the student is new, push to have a safety plan put in place if needed.
  • If you are required to change a student, make sure you have the proper PPE, supplies and location to work out of. Make sure the location has proper ventilation and a garbage can. Do not change students on the floor.
  • It is not your job to get photocopies or supplies for teaching staff. That is why they have prep and planning.
  • EA and ECE, you can be asked to supervise your students (JK/K or Identified) during arrival, and dismissal, noon hour and recess duties. They can schedule your breaks/lunch during instructional time. EAs hired before June 30, 2005 are not to do general supervision, EA’s hired after this date are restricted to 30 minutes of general supervision per day.
  • EA’s the employer updated the role outline, and you are allowed to go onto busses/vans to help students buckle and unbuckle. Try to get them to be as independent as possible, but if you need to do the buckle up, you can. Make sure that you have proper PPE if needed.
  • Secretaries make sure that you are only doing the jobs that are part of your role. If your school doesn’t have a vice principal, it is not your job to take on those responsibilities. Also, it’s not your job to supervise students. They should not be hanging around the office.

Stay safe,

Tracey

Use of Personal Devices at Work

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I wanted to reach out to remind everyone that they should not be using personal devices (phone, tablet, laptop, etc.) for work. This includes using your phones to scan QR codes for behaviour.

We have had members lose/break their devices while working either by accident or by student action. Neither the board nor WSIB will cover the loss/repair of a personal device. If you are required to fill out incident forms, scan the QR codes, check email, etc., please ask your supervisor for a board device to use. You can  use school tablets, Chromebooks, laptops, etc.

Retro Pay Letter – Email from Board

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Hi Folks,
Last Friday – February 28th – the board sent out a email to everyone that included a letter with the amounts of your retro payment broken down by tax year. The subject line of the email was “THIS IS A TEST”. On Saturday, they sent out an email explaining that the subject line was a mistake. Many of you may have thought this could be one of the IT email tests that they send out and may have deleted it. The totals on the letters did not always match the totals on the retro payment pay stub. Please check your letter. They have told me that they will be looking at the letters and sending them out again. Hopefully in the next few days.
Once correct, these letters can be used to fill out the T1198 when you do your taxes to have these amounts calculated at the tax rates for those years. If you find that the total on your letter does not match the total on your retro pay stub, please let me know. Once you get the letter a second time, please make sure that the numbers match those on your retro pay stub. If there are any recalculations that need to take place on your retro pay, that money will be included on the 2025 tax year T4.
Please make sure that you keep the letters in case of an audit.
In Solidarity,
Tracey
President