World Teacher’s Day rallies in Alberta cities ahead of looming strike action

Rallies in Calgary and Edmonton for World Teacher’s Day on Sunday come as teachers across the province prepare to hit the picket lines on Monday.

The event in Edmonton at 1:30 p.m. is held at the Alberta Legislative Building, while Calgary’s begins at 3 p.m. in the city’s downtown at the McDougall Centre.

Organizers are inviting Albertans to join the effort and to wear “Red for Ed,” a colour worn on Friday or bargaining days to bring awareness to the crisis facing public education.

Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) president Jason Schilling is speaking in Edmonton and Calgary.

The ATA announced 51,000 members would be walking off the job Monday morning, after almost 90 per cent of voters rejected the province’s latest contract offer.

That offer included a 12 per cent pay hike over four years and a promise to hire 3,000 more instructors.

Meanwhile, the ATA and the provincial government have resumed “exploratory conversations” in an effort to find common ground.

Schilling confirmed that even if a tentative agreement were reached over the weekend, the ratification process would delay any resolution.

Facebook group sharing classroom challenges doubles members amid strike talks

A social media group called “Alberta Teacher Tales” has thousands of posts from teachers sharing their day-to-day challenges in the classroom, with violence being a big part of the problem.

The group administrator, who asked not to be named, says it started as a way for teachers to share online learning strategies during the pandemic, and now that’s serving as a platform to share their classroom challenges.

They describe a classroom with 31 students they manage — 21 of whom have complex needs.

“Students who are suffering with mental health issues come to school, and they’re hurting, and they don’t have access to the help that they need, and the teacher is the one who has to try and fill that gap,” the administrator said.

“I’d love to just stick to teaching, but when a kid is in my classroom saying ‘I have a gun,’ how do I teach in that situation?”

The group’s administrator says they’re receiving an outpour of support from parents who are now beginning to understand the weight of classroom complexities.

“It’s not just our students who are struggling — it’s everybody in the classroom because we are essentially not teaching anymore. We’re putting out fires, it’s crowd control and behaviour management,” they said.

The group has over 10,000 supporters, made up of parents, current and retired teachers.

Provincial support measures

As schools across the province prepare to close their doors, the provincial government announced several initiatives to help parents and students in the event of a strike.

Along with an online curriculum — a home education grant providing $450 per child, the lifting of the 10-credit limit on distance education, and an increase to the childcare subsidy are being provided.

The province is also offering parents $30 per day for each student 12 and under to help with child care costs and tutoring. The government said payments would be retroactive and cost between $15 million and $20 million per day.

Most school boards, including those in Edmonton, Calgary, Fort McMurray and Lethbridge, have sent notices telling families that — barring an 11th-hour deal — classes would be paused beginning Monday.

The ongoing teacher labour discourse was one of the key issues discussed on Premier Danielle Smith’s province-wide call-in radio show Saturday morning.

When asked about whether she feels Monday’s strike can be avoided, Smith says she hasn’t heard of any plans not to strike, while taking the opportunity to push back on the ATA.

Smith also describes a strike as a lose-lose-lose situation for parents, teachers and students.

Meanwhile, the union says it looked into the government’s tool kits and is concerned about the quality of education, saying the lessons would have been completed the first week of September.

The last time Alberta teachers went on strike was in 2002. The premier at the time, Ralph Klein, declared a public emergency and ordered the 21,000 teachers back to work after nearly three weeks.

With files from Edward Djan and The Canadian Press