Grassroots Teachers’ Task Forces bring together teachers from across British Columbia to critically research one important practical problem or challenge faced by public education.

Teachers research the problem or challenge together and make recommendations for the profession as a whole to then carry out. The intent is mobilization, action, and accountability. We do this as members of the BCTF and our local teachers’ unions.

Open Task Forces:

• New task forces will start in September 2020

About the Process:

• Any public education teacher in British Columbia may participate in a task force.
• Each task force researches an urgent problem or challenge that is being overlooked, or that requires innovation to solve.
• The problem may seem intractable, but must be solvable in one to three years.
• The challenge is complex, requires solutions from more than one vantage point, and matters to students and communities.
• The challenge is critical to public education and must be overcome for the profession to achieve its promises, duties, and responsibilities to the students and communities we serve.
• Research begins when a task force is:
  • representative of the students and communities we serve,
  • inclusive of those who know the problem or challenge through direct experience,
  • composed of teachers who have come to know each other through a welcoming process (and who are ready to ensure that everyone’s voice will be heard, respected, and acted upon),
  • and prepared to work through a research process that: (a) clearly identifies an important challenge or problem and (b) leads to recommendations that can (and should) be acted upon by the profession as a whole (in concrete ways, so that we can hold ourselves to account as a profession).
• Task forces require at least one year of research and should be completed (with recommendations) in not more than two years.
• These recommendations are then mobilized within our union and progress is tracked and reported.
• The point is to address the problem or challenge effectively; action that leads to results for students and schools.