Alberta school divisions are telling families not to send students to school on Monday as the largest teacher strike in provincial history cancels classes at around 2,000 schools.
Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) members who work at the province’s public, Catholic and francophone schools are expected to walk off the job after the association was unable to reach an agreement with employers that teachers would accept.
More than 730,000 students across the province, from kindergarten to Grade 12, are affected by the strike and class cancellations.
School boards have told students’ families not to drop children off at school buildings or take them to bus stops. With a lack of clarity about how long a strike might last, school divisions last week told parents and guardians to bring home any student belongings that might be needed.
The provincial government is offering $30 per day, per child, to families of children age 12 and younger whose classes are cancelled during the strike.
The government will also increase the monthly child-care subsidy for children in Grades 1 to 6 to summer rates if the strike lasts longer than five days, it said in a Friday news release.
The province has also posted an online toolkit of lessons for students, and is lifting a cap on distance education credits, the government said Friday. The province is also waiving entrance fees for people age 18 and younger at provincial cultural sites, such as the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton and Head-Smashed-in Buffalo Jump near Fort Macleod.
“While I am disappointed by the ATA’s decision to strike, we remain focused on what matters most: our kids and their education,” Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said in the Friday news release.
The contract between 51,000 teachers and their employers expired on Aug. 31, 2024. Tensions escalated in May, when teachers voted to reject a mediator’s proposal that would have seen wages increase 12 per cent over four years, and create a $405 million class size and complexity fund.
A month later, ATA members voted 94.5 per cent in favour of a strike, which put them in a legal strike position for 120 days, until Oct. 7.
The ATA said on Sept. 10 members would go on strike on Oct. 6 if the parties couldn’t reach a deal by that deadline.
The parties reached a tentative agreement with the same 12 per cent salary increase and a government promise to pay for 3,000 net new teachers and 1,500 more educational assistant positions by 2028. The government said the offer would have been worth $2.6 billion over four years.
In a vote last week with 94 per cent turnout, nearly 90 per cent of teachers rejected that offer, setting the stage for a walkout.
Some teachers said the offer failed to address their concerns about salaries not keep up with inflation, which makes teacher recruitment and retention more difficult. They also said 3,000 teachers over three years is not enough to improve deteriorating conditions in classrooms, where enrolment continues to grow and overwhelmed teachers feel they can’t meet students’ diverse needs.
Last week, ATA president Jason Schilling says the province’s schools need at least 5,000 more teachers to meet provincial class size recommendations.
“The system is broken,” Schilling said on Alberta at Noon. “We’re in a crisis and we have to fix it. And that’s why they’re taking this stand.”
Premier Danielle Smith has said the government won’t agree to class-size caps because the province doesn’t have enough space in schools.
The ATA says informal conversations are taking place with the government in hopes of finding future terms of agreement.
