The Coquitlam School District is calling on the B.C. government to impose a contract settlement on the province’s teachers, who have been on a partial strike since September.

“People are frustrated and nobody’s moving forward and, in my opinion, I think most boards of education would like the government to step in,” School District 43 board chair Melissa Hyndes told the Tri-City News newspaper Tuesday.

The head of the B.C. School Trustees Association agrees.

"The Coquitlam District reflects, I think, what a lot of trustees are feeling around the province," said association president Michael McEvoy.

"From report cards to cancelled recess to field trips, these kind of things obviously have an impact on kids."

The province’s 40,000 teachers, without a contract since June, have refused to fill out report cards or to supervise playground activities.

Education Minister George Abbott also suggests there’s little hope for a negotiated settlement.

"There have been now, I think, something like 80 face-to-face bargaining sessions,” said Abbott Tuesday. “We're in the 12th month of discussions and literally, the parties are no closer to a resolution of this dispute than they were a year ago."

BCTF suspects strategy

The B.C. Teacher’s Federation wonders whether a legislated settlement was the plan all along.

"Were they going to come to the table with no ability to actually negotiate, actually reach a compromise, in order to eventually get the point where they throw up their hands and say we have to legislate," said federation president Susan Lambert.

The teachers are insisting on wage increases, which the government would agree to, but under its net-zero policy, that could occur only if equivalent savings were made elsewhere in the contract.

Caught in the middle are students and parents.

"Teachers are trying hard to keep things running and keep going well for us, but it is definitely a little incoherent," said Alexander van Driesum, a student at Oak Bay High school on Vancouver Island.

Not knowing just where they stand academically is also tough on students, said another.

"Normally, we can see our report cards and what we need to do and what we need to improve in, but we're not able to look at it," said Oak Bay student Page McGregor.

With files from the CBC's Stephen Smart