Terrace's teachers hit the streets last Saturday, handing out candy canes and spreading the word about cuts to public education.
President of the Terrace and District Teachers' Union, Karen Andrews said about 20 teachers stationed themselves around Terrace's downtown core to hand out teacher wishes for local classrooms, and educational facts they had attached to candy canes.
“What we wanted to do was broaden public awareness for education in our community,” Andrews said.
The teacher wishes were for things such as smaller classes and more special needs help. The educational facts included information such as the closure of nine schools in nine years in the Coast Mountains school district, along with 218 classes in Terrace and Thornhill with more than three special needs students per class.
Andrews said the message was not about current job action, rather the overall decline in money for schools province-wide, which she said declined 11 per cent from 1991 to 2010.
Andrews said this is the first time local teachers have done this, but since it was so successful they will consider another event in the new year.
“We were really pleased that the public were interpreting our messages, and they were really supportive,” she said.