A tentative deal has been reached in the British Columbia teachers' strike, a mediator confirmed Tuesday.

The breakthrough in negotiations came on the fifth day of talks at a Richmond hotel between the union and the employers' association with the help of Vince Ready.

Ready, known for his ability to solve even the toughest disputes, said both sides worked hard to reach the tentative deal, but he revealed few details.

“After all these hours, I am very pleased to announce that the parties have reached a tentative agreement," he told reporters outside the Delta Hotel.

"I’m not at liberty to release any of the details, nor are the parties. The parties are going to meet later this morning and finalize a few of the outstanding details, but generally speaking, there has been a tentative agreement initialized by the parties and that’s really all I got to say at this point.”

Negotiations resumed last week under increasing pressure from the public and suggestions by the government that legislating an end to the dispute was an option.

Last Wednesday, the BC Teachers' Federation voted overwhelmingly to end their dispute if the government agreed to binding arbitration — something the government firmly rejected.

Teachers launched full-scale job action two weeks before the summer break and students have missed more than two weeks of their new school year.

The federation and BC governments — no matter what political affiliation — have a decades-long history of animosity and difficult labour disputes.

More than 40,000 teachers in the province have been without a contract since June 2013 and class size and composition have been major stumbling blocks in the dispute.

Last January, a BC Supreme Court judge ruled the provincial government violated teachers' rights in 2002 when it declared they could no longer negotiate the size of classes or the number of support staff in classrooms. The province is appealing that decision.

But in an attempt to get movement at the bargaining table, the union began escalating stages of labour action in April.

About two weeks before the end of the last school year, teachers launched a full-scale walkout.

The teachers' union and the government's bargaining team barely spoke during the summer, and at the end of July, Finance Minister Mike de Jong announced the BC government would pay parents $40 a day for every child 12 and under if the teachers' strike continued into the start of the school year.

Veteran mediator Vince Ready agreed to make himself available in mid-August, but he walked away from the bargaining table Aug. 30, saying the two sides were just too far apart.

Schools remained closed Sept. 2 for half a million BC students.

On Friday, the union confirmed its and the government's bargaining teams had begun negotiations and both sides spent the weekend in marathon discussions inside a hotel in Richmond.

Photo: Trevor Rockliffe

Teachers in Kelowna welcome the news that a tentative deal has been reached between the BCTF and the provincial government.