The Alberta government will redirect money saved during a potential teachers’ strike to payments for parents with younger children in public, Catholic and francophone schools.
Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner announced Tuesday in Calgary that parents and guardians with children age 12 and younger can apply for $150 a week, should Alberta Teachers’ Association educators walk off the job on Oct. 6. The first payment will be made on Oct. 31.
“Please know that if the union goes ahead and we do see job action … that government has plans in place to help students and families,” Premier Danielle Smith said at the Tuesday announcement.
“We will not leave you alone in uncertainty.”
The ATA announced Monday night that 89.5 per cent of voting members rejected a contract offer, setting the stage for a provincewide strike next week that could affect 700,000 students across Alberta. The association said voter turnout was 94 per cent.
Horner said parents will have to apply online for the payments, should a strike occur. He added he was puzzled why teachers have now voted down two proposed contracts that he said the ATA leaders agreed to before a mediator and later at the bargaining table.
“I believe it is harmful for the union to strike without clearly understanding and presenting what their members are looking for.”
At the same news conference, Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides also announced the government has prepared a toolkit for parents and guardians to teach children, should classes be cancelled by a strike.
Nicolaides said the online resources cover core subjects like math, language arts, science and social studies and will include videos, worksheets and practice questions. He said any strike will affect students’ learning.
“They should not suffer the consequences of this job action, and we will do what we can to make sure that disruption to families is limited,” Nicolaides said.
When asked about the overall cost of the measures, a government spokesperson did not directly answer the question.
Provincial student population statistics show there were 738,660 students enrolled in public, Catholic and francophone schools during a preliminary count last year. If roughly half of Alberta students are in elementary school, the government could pay parents up to $55 million per week during a strike, if all eligible families claim the money.
ATA says province paying parents to wait out a strike
Smith said at the same news conference the province intends to hire 1,500 more educational assistants for schools by 2028.
That commitment was one part of the offer teachers rejected, saying it wasn’t enough to address lagging pay and growing class size and complexity challenges.
In a statement Tuesday, ATA president Jason Schilling said the government’s claims that it’s unclear what teachers want is “insulting and unfounded.”
Schilling’s statement said teachers want fair pay, respect and support for students who aren’t getting what they need. He said the ATA has proposed ideas like capping class sizes at the bargaining table, and employers shot them down.
The statement said an ATA proposal to hire 3,000 teachers was a “last-ditch effort” from bargainers to reach a proposal employers could accept.
Schilling said $30 a day for child care is about twice as much as the government spends funding each student daily.
“The government would rather pay parents to wait out a strike than pay teachers to prevent one, his statement said.
On Tuesday, Smith said the Alberta government won’t consider capping class sizes because there is not enough space in Alberta school buildings to do it.
“We want to maintain maximum flexibility for school boards to be able to hire the complement of staff that they need,” she said.
“And in some school boards, they hire more teachers, and other school boards, they hire more education assistants.”
Some parents see supports as half-measures
Meagan Parisian, vice-president of the Alberta School Councils’ Association and a parent of three school-aged students in Red Deer, said she believes the government’s strike contingency plans are not a suitable substitute for adequately funding public education.
“Those dollars could be reinvested and far better spent supporting public education and making sure that we are supporting students and teachers with the resources that they need to be able to thrive and build up a successful future in Alberta,” she said.
Parisian is looking at extra child-care fees or possible day camps for her two elementary school-aged children, should a teachers’ strike occur. Although she said a cheque would help with the costs, she’d rather her children be in school.
Fort McMurray parent Holly Lucier said the contingency funding and online toolkit are of little use to families of children with behavioural challenges.
Lucier said her six-year-old daughter has autism and needs a full-time educational assistant present to attend school. Last winter, an educational support workers’ strike in Fort McMurray was a massive interruption to her daughter’s education, she said.
The child’s toilet training regressed, and she was sometimes awake for 36 hours at a time. Lucier said the challenges disqualified her daughter from conventional daycare centres. She said she was paying $25 an hour for child care, and her daughter was so disregulated, she would have no capacity to sit down for math or language lessons.
“These children sometimes will be banging their heads, punching their heads, banging their heads off of floors, walls —everything else — because you’ve taken away their trust and what they know to expect,” Lucier said. “And then, you know, you’re offering them these toolkits. … You’re offering puppy kibble in lieu of the proverbial steak.”
Lucier said a lack of access to treatment, diagnostic and social services is leading to children with untreated behavioural challenges spilling into classrooms for teachers to manage with little extra help.
More information about government supports during a teachers’ strike is available on the province’s website.
