It was the stunning absurdity of getting docked pay for “job action” he didn't take after working 70 hours of unpaid overtime that prompted a school psychologist to write an open letter to Premier Christy Clark.

“My first reaction was ‘Are you kidding me’,” Todd Kettner told The Province Thursday, of opening his pay slip earlier this week and seeing the deduction of $596.82.

“It was a slap in the face, and for me it crystallized a lot of the stories I had been hearing from people in the public sector for decades.”

Kettner, a psychologist for the school district of Kootenay Lake, had left a lucrative private practice to make a difference as a grief counsellor in public education, in the province with the country’s highest child poverty rate.

He first posted his letter to Facebook on Wednesday and since then, it has already been shared more than 2,500 times.

Kettner said that he is surprised by how much attention his letter is getting. He hopes that people take from it an understanding of the behind-the-scenes dedication of public workers, and that how important community work has become a casualty of the current conflict.

“I think my message is, if the adults play well in the sandbox then the children will too,” Kettner said. “I just hope that whatever tables people (involved in negotiations) are sitting at right now, they remember the values of our public education system.”

In his letter, Kettner describes the duties and responsibilities as a psychologist and grief counsellor supporting students and teachers across 21 schools, specifically the whirlwind of incidents that pulled him away from his home earlier this month.

His letter of May 27 reads:

“Today wasn’t a great day for me personally. Neither was yesterday. Nor last week. Not even the week before.

“In fact, difficult days have been the norm since I was pulled away from preparing Mother’s Day brunch for my wonderful wife ....”

Kettner goes on to describe how a text message that day alerted him to the disappearance of four youths on Slocan Lake during a boating accident on May 10.

Lily Harmer-Taylor, 19, Hayden Kyle, 21, Skye Donnet, 18, and Jule Wiltshire-Padfield, 15, went missing that day when their canoe capsized.

Harmer-Taylor’s body was found that same day, while the bodies of the other three were finally found earlier this week.

“So instead of cooking brunch and spending a lovely Mother’s Day with my wife and two children ... I drove for an hour and a half to get to Lucerne Elementary Secondary School in New Denver,” Kettner writes.

The husband and father then spent the next five school days working 12- to 15-hour shifts, providing grief counselling while teachers and other staff helped with the search efforts on Slocan Lake.

“Some of these teachers and administrators volunteered countless hours and sleepless nights assisting the search and recovery efforts,” he writes. “Then they came to school unshaven and bleary-eyed the next day, determined to maintain as much normalcy at school as humanly possible for their students who were the classmates, friends and relatives of the deceased.

“Of course these people, who are employed by the citizens of British Columbia, gave willingly of their time, energy and tears as any decent human being would in a crisis.”

The following week, Kettner continued to shuttle between New Denver and Nelson, working with schools and families of the four Slocan Lake victims, before taking a brief break to volunteer with a mental health awareness community event.

“There wasn’t much of a break though, as I was awakened Sunday morning by a phone call informing me that a student ... was on life support in ICU after an accidental drug overdose,” the letter reads. “I spent much of the day Sunday and most of the evening with other caring school staff (CUPE, BCTF, principal, and senior administrators) to plan supports for this student’s family, friends and classmates.”

The following Monday, Kettner and other school staff were then hit by a barrage of devastating incidents, one after the other.

News arrived in the morning of a student whose parent had been killed in a tragic accident, requiring Kettner’s services. Before he and another school administrator had even reached their car to begin the drive to the school, a text message arrived, informing Kettner that a recent graduate at another school had died.

While driving to the first school, Kettner again received a third message from yet another school that an at-risk student had disclosed significant abuse.

“Today started for me before my own children had even eaten breakfast when I left early to drive 130 km to another grieving school. I worked once again with dedicated teachers, school counsellors, another psychologist and several incredible principals and administrators to make sure that students were safe and being cared for,” Kettner writes in his closing paragraph.

“Today ended for me after my own children had already eaten supper when I finally arrived home at 7 p.m. After working more than 70 hours of unpaid overtime in the past 16 days, I opened my paycheck to see that — even prior to tomorrow’s first scheduled strike day in our district — you had deducted $596.82 from my family’s income for what you describe on my paystub as ‘job action.’

“Hopelessly, Dr. Todd Kettner.”

Read Kettner’s full letter on Facebook here.

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List of next week's rotating strikes:

Monday, June 2

#20 — Kootenay-Columbia

#23 — Central Okanagan

#27 — Cariboo-Chilcotin

#35 -Langley

#37 — Delta

#38 — Richmond

#42 — Maple Ridge

#52 — Prince Rupert

#59 — Peace River South

#63 — Saanich

#68 — Nanaimo

#70 — Alberni

#83 — North Okanagan-Shuswap

Tuesday, June 3

#10 — Arrow Lakes

#19 — Revelstoke

#22 — Vernon

#33 — Chilliwack

#36 — Surrey

#41 — Burnaby

#44 — North Vancouver

#45 — West Vancouver

#46 — Sunshine Coast

#57 — Prince George

#58 — Nicola Similkameen

#64 — Gulf Islands

#71 — Comox

#79 — Cowichan Valley

#81 — Fort Nelson

Thursday, June 5

#8 — Kootenay Lake

#34 — Abbotsford

#43 — Coquitlam

#47 — Powell River

#50 — Haida Gwaii

#51 — Boundary

#53 — Okanagan Similkameen

#54 — Bulkley Valley

#60 — Peace River North

#61 — Greater Victoria

#69 — Qualicum

#73 — Kamloops Thompson

#84 — Vancouver Island West

#91 — Nechako Lakes

#92 — Nisga’a

Friday, June 6

#5 — Southeast Kootenay

#6 — Rocky Mountain

#28 — Quesnel

#39 — Vancouver

#40 — New Westminster

#48 — Sea to Sky

#49 — Central Coast

#62 — Sooke

#67 — Okanagan Skaha

#72 — Campbell River

#74 — Gold Trail

#75 — Mission

#78 — Fraser-Cascade

#82 — Coast Mountains

#85 — Vancouver Island North

#87 — Stikine

*School District #93 (Conseil Scolaire francophone) schools will be closed with others in their local communities throughout the week.