By Tommy Osborne

New Teachers' Deal

Prince George educators happy with new deal, but point to several shortcomings

Mar 6, 2026 | 4:39 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Following one year of negotiations, the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF)announced a new four year collective agreement is on the way, following a vote that saw 91% in favour of a new deal with the BC Public School Employers Association. The deal brings a 3% wage increase per year for four years, on top of other supports and benefits.

“All those sorts of supports, on top of the salary increase, are hopefully going to make it where this is a profession that we have young people or people that are coming back to it that would really want to say: ‘I think I want to be a teacher. I want to work in School District 57.’ So across the board, we’re pretty happy,” said School District 57’s Board Chair Craig Brennan.

“Given the context of the provincial budget, shortage of teachers, and other factors, we feel that it’s a reasonable deal,” added the Prince George District Teachers’ Association (PGDTA) President Katherine Trepanier.

The deal also includes more preparation time for elementary school teachers, which Brennan says increases the time from 120 to 130 minutes.

On Demand

March 6, 2026: CKPG News on Demand

35m ago

New Teachers' Deal

Prince George educators happy with new deal, but point to several shortcomings

2h ago

Update

The class action following the fire at the Prince George Econo Lodge Motel has settled

3h ago

“It allows you then to prepare your materials for your planning, get everything ready, so that your school days are reasonable length. Your school days do not run the five hours the students are in session. Teachers come in early, they work late often into the evening, so that’s being recognized by additional prep time,” Brennan said.

One point Trepanier was quite happy to see was a focus on recruitment and retention. Besides the 3% per year wage increase, the new deal also provides a wage bump at the lower end of the pay grid to attract new teachers.

“Our sub locals, MacKenzie, McBride, Valemount, those members will benefit from that. So that’s good because it can often be difficult to recruit people to go to, in particular, MacKenzie has struggled to attract teachers there,” Trepanier said.

Other benefits include more counsellors in schools and special allowances for some schools to bring in psychologists and Indigenous language teachers. Trepanier is happy to see these benefits in the new deal, but she adds there are several things not addressed she would’ve hoped to see.

“We will see an increase in counsellors, which is great. Unfortunately, it’s still not what the government had promised, which was there would be a counsellor in every school. We still think that is something that would benefit all kids and is really needed. And, of course, the government can always provide more than the minimum that’s in the collective agreement,” Trepanier said.

“This is a good step forward for teachers, clearly, the large majority of people voted for this deal. But it is a modest step forward,” she continued.

Trepanier says she and the PGDTA will continue to advocate for more support for students in schools, which includes the aforementioned counsellors but also more learning assistants.

“When kids are better supported, that’s obviously good support for teachers as well. Those are the things that we still really need to continue to work on, getting more support for kids,” Trepanier said.

One of the bigger items Trepanier hopes will be addressed in the future is class sizes, as she says class sizes are increasing due to a combination of a teacher shortage and lack of physical space, and overwhelming class sizes can be one of the biggest challenges teachers face.

“We do have about 30% of teachers who leave the profession in the first five years. That’s largely due to the working conditions and the challenges that we face in schools,” Trepanier said.

While Trepanier believes there was plenty of room for improvement, and things she will continue advocating for, both she and Brennan emphasized the value of having a stable deal with multiple benefits in place. Brennan says the stability is especially noteworthy for the School Board as it also charts a map for the School District’s future.

“We’re starting into our review of our strategic plan, and that will then be in effect from 2026 to 2031, and to have a hopefully newly ratified contract with our teachers is really great,” Brennan said.

Should the BCTF’s deal be fully ratified, it will be retroactive to July 1, 2025, and run until June 30, 2029.