As one might expect, Interac decided to take its ball and go home, transferring a number of its ALTs out of Hokkaido in the process.

However, that wasn’t a problem, because NOVA had a vast and untapped pool of foreign teachers just waiting in the wings to flock to Hokkaido in order to replace the teachers that didn’t decide to transition from Interac to NOVA (albeit on a lower salary) in order to keep their old schools and students.

On April 21st, 2016, just a month after the disaster had unfolded, NOVA informed its ALTs that the Sapporo Board of Education had cancelled the contract with NOVA due to NOVA being unable to provide enough ALTs to fill the void that Interac left in its wake.

You see, NOVA didn’t have a vast untapped pool of experienced ALTs after all. Oops.

NOVA blamed Interac who blamed the Board of Education who just shrugged and said it wasn’t their problem.

All in all, it was an embarrassment, with the Sapporo ALTs being caught in the middle of business-politics, blame-storming, and finger-pointing bureaucracy.

***

After months and months of dealing with the fallout from that disaster, the Sapporo Board of Education has been dealing with various parties – the General Union chief among them – in an attempt to ensure that those affected by the catastrophe (namely, the teachers and their students) would never have to suffer through such an egregious failure ever again.

During the course of these dealings, the union has done its utmost to highlight the various illegalities and pitfalls of depending upon dispatch companies while attempting to convince the Board of Education to learn from its mistakes and do right by the teachers who have putting their heart and soul into the local education communities.

Keep in mind that these are people who chose to STAY in Sapporo, even after such a grand betrayal, because they thought that it was best for the kids.

Several days ago (as of the time of writing), after months of consideration, discussion, and union action, the Sapporo Board of Education finally decided on a powerful new strategy of changing nothing except for the duration of how long it would contract with a dispatch company in the future.

Previously, the contracts were only for one year.

In its infinite wisdom, the Sapporo Board of Education decided that they’d outsource contracts for two years, instead.

PROBLEM. SOLVED.

This is the best that they could come up with.

It’s important to note that this does not provide any benefit to the ALTs who are working day-after-day in Sapporo.

ALTs will not be fortunate enough to have two years of job security in their assigned position.

The only entity that will profit from this decision is whatever company the Sapporo Board of Education decides to use in the future, who will now have two years of assured income instead of just one.

Essentially, the Board of Education has decided that the events of March and April, 2016, WERE a bit sudden, so… what if they just had a bit more time to work with in the future?

Suffice to say, the General Union isn’t happy about this turn of events, and will continue to push the issue for the sake of all of those who affected by these callous establishment decisions.

Watch this space.

***