After serving in numerous other roles over the last seven years, Frank Bonvino took up his post in the Burnaby Teachers’ Association’s president’s office this month.
Raised in Burnaby, the new local union chief attended Morley Elementary and Burnaby Central Secondary.
With a bachelor of science from SFU and teaching credentials from UBC, he has spent all his teaching years in Burnaby too, with the last 10 at Burnaby North as a chemistry teacher. He also has a master’s of education in curriculum from SFU.
The NOW chatted with Bonvino last week about the year ahead. Here is some of that conversation edited for brevity.
Why did you decide to become a teacher?
I decided to become a teacher because I just had a wonderful experience in the public education system here in K to 12 in Burnaby. It was a really good experience. It’s your formative years and there are certain anxieties that you go through and ups and downs, but generally speaking I thought I had a really good quality educational experience. I thought my teachers were quite professional and some of them I still look up to, I still think about a lot, and they impacted my teaching.
Tell me about one of those.
My first teacher that I was really close to was Ms. (Gloria) Britland. I had her as my Grade 1 teacher at Morley Elementary School. I was a bit of a shy kid and I was always sort of on the periphery, kind of cautious. I think that maybe led some to wonder in kindergarten if I was maybe a little bit behind. When I was at home I would go through the ABCs and 123s and all that stuff, but when I was in school in kindergarten, I wasn’t able to reproduce that. … Miss Britland, I don’t know what it was about her exactly, but I just remember that she just sort of turned me on to the classroom and learning and that’s when I started to thrive. I remember her all the way back in Grade 1. She passed away a number of years ago.
Why did you first get involved in the union?
I got hired as a TOC in January of 2002 just days before the government stripped our collective agreement. When we had our day of protest, I’d been in the classroom as a TOC for just a few days. And I remember listening to David Chudnovsky, who was the BCTF president at the time, and I thought he was really intelligent, articulate, and I really looked up to him.
Right away I realized that if you have a strong, intelligent voice speaking on your behalf, that’s the best path forward. … Shortly before the 2005 strike I became a staff rep. …
The reason why I started to become more and more involved is that I had a really great experience as a kid going through the public education system and I realized that, if teachers are being supported and if there’s anything I can do and other activists can do to support teachers, it’s just going to make the experience for the kids that much better.
What would you like to accomplish during your time as BTA president?
First of all we’ve got the court case. We’re before the Supreme Court of Canada in November and we’re hoping for a final decision that will come probably around the time of the provincial election, which is the next big thing.
What I’m hoping to accomplish is to basically make public education a vote-determining issue for people in the community when they go to the ballot box in May.
Is this a stepping stone for you for involvement in the BCTF on a provincial level?
No. I wouldn’t say so. Right now I plan on returning to Burnaby North when I’m done my term as president.
Does that mean that if another opportunity opens up to do something else, I wouldn’t consider it? No. I would consider any opportunity that comes up. I am always going to be involved in terms of the activist piece.
…I worry about the stepping stone piece in the sense that I think sometimes people are looking too far ahead, and they’re not looking at what’s in front of them at the time, and I’m just really focused on what’s going to be happening this year.
The BTA is traditionally among the most vocal locals. Is that just the executive or local teachers?
The executive, I think, really accurately reflects what’s happening in the local, and I would agree with you that we are vocal – or I use the term ‘active.’
We’re definitely engaged and I think that’s a great thing.
I think the teachers in Burnaby are well informed of what’s happening, not only in the district but what’s happening on the provincial scene.
Why do you think that is?
I think we’ve had a lot of great leaders that have come through here over time, people that are well respected, and we’ve always spoken with a common, strong voice, and I think that over time the BTA has garnered a lot of respect, and so I think that when we’re in schools and we’re speaking with staff and we’re talking about issues, I think that’s well received.
And, really, when teachers become informed about what’s going on and they understand, I think that leads to more activism as well.
Do you think local teachers are engaged enough in their union?
They could always be more engaged. I think what’s happening now, and I don’t limit this to the union movement specifically but just all volunteer organizations, is that people are kind of stretched thin in terms of their work life. …I think people are generally engaged, but it’s difficult to get people out as much as maybe you were able to in the past.
What can a local union do at a local level?
The relationship piece is really important, and we have a good relationship with our district. I like to say we can disagree without being disagreeable, and that’s really important. In the day-to-day lives of teachers, the relationship and the advocacy of the local union is really important.
The money issues are basically dealt with at the provincial table since we moved, in the ’90s, from strictly local bargaining to a two-tiered system, it has become a little more challenging.
And that actually speaks to the piece that you mentioned before about turnout to meetings and that sort of thing. It was a bit easier to get people to turn out to meetings before. … You felt like when you went to meetings and you participated that you had a little bit more impact on the final outcome in local bargaining. Provincial bargaining, it’s a little bit more challenging because it’s so far removed from what’s happening.
The local union definitely sets the tone day to day. It’s super important. If you look at our professional development day, for example, the district day that we put on; that’s a joint venture. …The collaboration that the union and the district have there is quite phenomenal, and the professional learning opportunities are quite extensive
What’s the most pressing local issue?
There’s always new and emerging issues. There’s one that you wrote about the other day. The admin savings that have just been returned, there’s about $1.03 million there. The BTA’s advocating for that money to be redirected to the classroom to hire teachers. It’s about 12 FTE teachers. …What that will do is that will help to improve class size, class composition and specialist teacher staff ratios. …If you look at local issues, advocacy is a really important one. This will be an example of where that relationship piece and the advocacy piece can lead to some improvements for teachers in the classroom.
Anything else?
I’m excited for the year ahead. It’s a big year, as I said, with the court case and the provincial election coming up and wanting public education to be a vote determining issue. The part that I want to stress is that I’m excited about the team in the office. The BTA president is the official spokesperson but is not doing the work alone.
There’s always a team and I feel like the two people (first vice-president Leanne Sjodin and second vice president Daniel Tétrault) I have working with me are just wonderful people, great teachers and phenomenal activists.
