Hey everyone, thanks for checking out this blog. I know teacher strikes are a serious topic that affects every family, but as a content creator and volunteer for Help Young Minds here at the University of Alberta, this is a fight I feel really personally invested in. Our whole mission is to help assist those in our community who do not have access to the resources they require for their education and development. We want to support families who due to their socioeconomic circumstances are struggling to gain access to educational resources for their children to have a fair opportunity to reach their full potential and reach for the stars. Right now, teachers are saying that current classroom conditions are blocking that path to the stars, and that's why an overwhelming majority of them, 89.5 per cent, voted to reject the latest contract offer and are planning to strike on October 6.
Before I go any further, what is a strike, and what does it usually accomplish? Imagine you and your friends at a job all agree that the working conditions or pay aren't fair. A strike is a group decision to stop working until the boss listens and tries to make a better deal. It's a powerful way for employees, from factory workers to teachers, to show they are essential and demand respect, better pay, or safer working conditions. The history of strikes is long; they became common during the Industrial Revolution when workers had very few rights and often labored in dangerous, low-paid jobs. By working together and refusing to work, they fought for the 8-hour workday, weekends, and safety rules we often take for granted today. Essentially, it's about using the power of the group to push for fair treatment.
As a fourth-year student teacher, I’ve witnessed exactly why teachers are done negotiating for scraps. The Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA) is saying this strike is happening because the agreement failed to improve student classroom conditions in a concrete and meaningful way. This hits home because I've watched what teachers do to make up for those missing resources. They are constantly showing up early and staying late after school, pouring hours into planning and making sure they have enough materials for the next day. Beyond the time, most teachers spend their own money to provide a meaningful classroom environment, purchasing things like snacks and prizes, decoration, and interactive material. When oversized classes and growing student complexities combine, the learning environments stop meeting students' needs and they push teachers far past their limits.
The most heartbreaking complexity I have witnessed is the devastating reality of student hunger, which directly ties into the socioeconomic struggles that Help Young Minds is trying to address. The truth is, Alberta leads Canada in the rate of children living in food insecurity. I volunteered at a school where I saw many students going straight to the office at recess and lunch just to get access to food because they didn't have their own. We are talking about tens of thousands of kids showing up to school hungry. How can a child possibly reach for the stars or focus on their education when their basic need for food isn't even met? Teachers know they need better resources to help these kids, but the government has basically forced teachers to bargain for basic classroom needs, which the ATA president calls "inappropriate and embarrassing".
What teachers really want is accountability and concrete action, specifically a cap on the number of students in a class. Frontline teachers see this class cap as their sticking point, a necessary step to create learning environments that can handle the growing complexities. The government, led by Premier Danielle Smith, is pushing back, appealing to the ATA to "Call it off". They claim they've been "very generous," offering pay hikes, more staff, and more schools. They even offered an agreement that would see a top-level teacher making $114,800 a year by 2027, which they call the best pay in Western Canada. To help with complexity, the government has committed to hiring 3,000 more educators and 1,500 more educational teaching assistants (EAs) over three years, and they are going ahead with the EAs regardless of the strike. However, they resist hard class size caps, saying they want to keep flexibility for school boards. They also point out that they have to accelerate an $8.6 billion plan to build 130 new schools, noting they cannot "materialize schools out of thin air". Teachers hear all this, but they still feel they've been shot down at every turn and that the offered 12 per cent pay increase is just insufficient after they only received less than six per cent in salary increases over the last decade. Plus, Alberta continues to fall well below the national average for spending per student.
Perhaps the biggest sign of misplaced priorities is the government's Parent Payment Program. They are offering eligible parents $150 per week per child (12 and under) for the duration of the strike, using money from redirected unspent educational grants, largely unspent teacher salaries. The ATA president summed up the feeling perfectly, saying the government "would rather pay parents to wait out a strike than pay teachers to prevent one". For those of us involved in Help Young Minds, we know that these small payments are no substitute for a functioning public system that ensures every student, especially those struggling with socioeconomic circumstances, gets the resources they need. The teachers’ strike is a necessary fight for better working conditions, fair pay, and most importantly, for guaranteeing the resources needed to provide a fair opportunity for all our children to reach their full potential and reach for the stars.
Sources For Further Reading:
https://teachers.ab.ca/news/teacher-strike-imminent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCkhHGUfNgs https://www.alberta.ca/parent-supports-during-school-closure https://teachers.ab.ca/bargaining-next-steps/public-strike-information https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/bell-danielle-smith-appeals-alberta-teachers-strike https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/article/alberta-leads-canada-in-number-of-students-showing-up-to-school-hungry-organization/
