Dale Kirby holds 'productive' meeting with teachers union after call for dismissal

A frosty relationship between Newfoundland and Labrador teachers and their education minister appears to be thawing.

One month after the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers' Association (NLTA) called for the dismissal of Education Minister Dale Kirby, the two sides held a two-hour meeting on Tuesday and both sides say it was a good step forward.

"It was productive. It's important to have an open line of communication with our most important stakeholders in education," Kirby said.

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Kirby said the calls for his job never really bothered him, but insists getting down to the details of classroom conditions was more important than the "political rhetoric."

"There are a variety of different things going on in the department now that we need the NLTA to be engaged in," he said. "Having a war of words is not really going to help us get there with any of these initiatives."

The minister said the two-hour discussion was wide-ranging, and said the department was able to discuss a number of individual situations that the could follow up on.

NLTA 'moving on'

Jim Dinn, president of the NLTA, said the meeting on Tuesday was a "good first step," that "certainly opened the door for further dialogue."

Dinn called it a frank and open exchange, and said the two sides discussed special education, multi-grade classrooms and the Premier's Task Force on Improving Educational Outcomes.

The NLTA has repeatedly raised alarms about what resources teachers have available for special education, and says the union remains opposed to combined grades.

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While Dinn said the NLTA's request that Kirby be replaced can only be rescinded at an executive meeting, he'd rather get down to business.

"We can spend our energy looking for the resignation and that's in the hands of the executive or we can start looking at spending energy and resolving the issues in the classroom," he said.

"My preference would be and I would say the preference of teachers is to work on option two."

Dinn said there was no guarantee that the two sides would not be back at loggerheads in a few months, but some progress had been made on Tuesday.