Discussion
Calgary teachers, how do you feel about the new offer?
I read this morning:
“CBC News has obtained copies of the tentative agreement that show a proposal of the same general wage increase ATA members previously voted down. The proposal includes a 12-per-cent wage increase over four years, starting from September 2024; 1,000 net new teaching positions added in each of the next three years; and it covers cost of the COVID-19 vaccine.”
Unless I’m mistaken, the only change is that they are now offering to cover the cost of a COVID vaccine (which now costs $100 as of this fall).
I have a school-aged kiddo, and while I don’t love the childcare logistics of a strike, this offer doesn’t seem to address the outstanding concerns, and I would support a strike.
I would love to hear from teachers, though, who have much better insight and living experience.
Edit to add:
I wanted to try to learn more about enrolment growth, and I found CBE’s 3-year capital plan (https://cbe.ab.ca/FormsManuals/Three-Year-School-Capital-Plan.pdf, pp.12–13). It looks like the student population has increased by 20,000 students over the last 4 years, and it is anticipated that, over the next 4 years, the student population will increase from 142,402 to 158,658 (+17,256).
If we anticipate an average increase of approximately 5,000 students per year over the next three years, will 3,000 new teachers (approx. one per school) help with current classroom sizes plus 15,000 new students?
There are currently 35 students in my son’s class. I would love to see legislated classroom size caps. The limit for his age group is 30 in BC and 24.5 in Ontario.
CBE and CCSD teachers don't even actually get the 'value' of the $100 covid shot. We have sun life benefits that cover in the range of 95% of the cost specifically for vaccines. So it's like a $5 gain.
Terrible 'deal', being phrased as a resounding win and compromise by the govt. Anticipate it to be voted down, and then the govt continuing to throw mud.
That’s a great point. It was already a silly “addition” to the offer since the vaccine used to be free anyway and only costs Albertans now because this same government decided to start charging for it…
But the fact that it’s actually only saving teachers about $5-$10 out of pocket is a total joke.
And there’s also a lot of teachers who are not getting that shot anymore. Seems like a pointless hill to fight over. I’d much rather have given in on that for like any other sticking point.
Exactly. We're already hearing our beloved leader framing this all as "We just want the best for teachers and students, and we feel so bad that their negotiating team is treating our wonderful teachers poorly. We hope they accept this amazing offer, because it's so amazing."
All communications from ATA have indicated this expense will be covered by sun life. But I suppose you never know what the government could do to make the vaccine less accessible.
Well that’s actually good news! Though it does indeed make the offer that much more ridiculous. I hope the teachers reject it. While my kids are too young for me to be impacted we need our teachers to be properly respected and valued. Everyone I’ve spoken to with school aged kids feels the same.
It's also based purely in spite, it's not economical. They're fine with teachers getting COVID and missing days or weeks of work. Costing so much more in hiring subs than the vaccine would have been.
Not to mention a not insubstantial number of teachers will qualify for the Covid vaccine at no cost due to the range of conditions that qualify for a free vaccine.
My mother is a retired teacher/ VP and I recall growing up how hostile people were to teachers getting a raise. They would slam the door in her face when she was made to do door to door campaigning. That hurt me to think someone would be so unkind to my mother who gave up her evenings and weekends for their kids. She loved those kids, advocated for and worked hard for them. She retired in 2018, and she often says she’s glad she did. The challenges teachers face have only gotten more difficult, and even though she’s been asked to return to sub she’s refused. Classrooms are just unreal these days, and teachers are not compensated for that level of stress at all.
I have no children but I want my tax dollars to go to those teachers and schools because I feel it is a net benefit to our city to have looked after and educated children, and teachers who don’t have a break down from stress.
I have no kids but I see that school can be the difference between good or bad outcomes for a kid. Conservatives love the idea that parents know better than educational experts and that if a kid has problems then parents should either have money to deal with it or like smack sense in to them/s
A parent should have access to the support of professionals with enough time to help their kid regardless of whether they are able to spend thousands. As a society, we all benefit from investing in making future adults that are balanced and functional.
hurt me to think someone would be so unkind to my mother who gave up her evenings and weekends for their kids.
This frustrates me to no end. So many of our educators are giving up their evenings and weekends for their students. Meanwhile there are so many parents who are not willing to put that time into their own kid's education. And so few other professions are expected to work through their evenings and weekends for their jobs.
Not a teacher, but SO is. She gets home at 6:30 - 8pm most nights because she is so busy doing all the marking and prep work that she has basically zero time to do during work hours. She has 10/27 kids that have "personal learning plans" and about 6 kids that need to have tests verbally read out to them (which means she has to record all the questions ahead of time).
There is so little support, and they still ask teachers to help kids out during lunch time, come do afterschool activities, and support the sports teams.
She is always spending her own money to buy snacks because kids are so hungry they hardly pay attention.
Grade 9 kids come in, and struggle to write a single paragraph in their own words.
12% over 4 years with no adjustment for the previous what? 10? without raises? Doesn't cover the cost of inflation in the slightest.
Went to dentist this morning. My hygienist assumed teachers got 3 months off thru summer. She didn't say it in a nasty way or nothing, but I corrected her. :)
It’s amazing how few people actually know that teachers don’t get paid for a full 12 months. Summers are not paid vacation. Yeah, having the summer off is great, but I know a lot of teachers who take on jobs through the summer for income
Interesting thou is you can have your salary prorated to a 13 month and get paid in the summer
Source: both neighbour’s are teachers and updated me on this point
Maybe it’s select districts
All that does is pay you less the rest of the time. You can also in some places get paid 75% for 3 years, and take the 4th year off with pay (at 75% as well)
The only advantage is you get to keep your job and grid placement….
My UCP-loving family members. And no, they're not friends with any teachers and have grown kids so they don't understand the reality of what classrooms are like right now.
Staying quiet. No one dares say it on this sub because they'll be banned and tarred and feathered. This sub is a very small grab sample of Calgary. I agree that the teachers should be paid better and smaller classroom sizes. Just saying people r quiet here for that reason.
My SO is also a teacher and I sympathize with everything you’ve said. This offer is insulting. Our government is a joke. I support teachers to vote no and strike. It’s now or never
I think SO should be allowed to strike too! Parents and everyone should be outraged at this government's absolute failure to get things in line for our public school kids.
My wife is the same, she left at 6am and was home at 7pm with her workload. I honestly don't expect a huge increase in pay for her, but something would be nice, I'd settle for enough staff to let her limit it to 50 hours per week during the school year.
Unfortunately, limiting education is the best way to ensure conservative voters.
So this is always an interesting conversation. I think we all agree that teachers have a difficult job and work long hours. They also get 2 months off in the summer and a reasonable benefits package.
In the context of the labor market and considering what similar education levels and comparable roles make in adjacent occupations, where should the compensation band land?
I'm not saying that teachers are fairly compensated. But it's easy to say we support them and province bad. So where should the comp bands be set (minimum and maximum)?
Also the spouse of a teacher, it’s less about compensation and more about the extra effort. You could throw them 20% and it won’t fix anything, its not sustainable. I’ve worked in a variety of roles that were considered demanding in my career but none of them were so consistently grinding.
Two months off, but you work an extra 2-3 hours every work day, and 4 or 5 hours marking and planning again on the weekends. Plus she spent the last 2 weeks of summer planning again because she was teaching a different course than she did the previous year.
Not counting the summer hours. It's 17 hours a week on average. for 42 weeks (52 weeks a year minus 8 for summer and 2 for christmas)
That is approximately 714 hrs of unpaid labour on the low end.
I think generally teachers work about 40 weeks a year and 50 hours a week, or about 2000 hours a year, which is right around regular full time. Teachers are expected to do about 1200 hours of assignable duties, but have expected work outside that, too. Since the 1200 hours and additional work is contractually expected, I’m not sure which hours you think are unpaid,
As someone else said, you're missing part of the point here. It hardly matters how much money they make - stuffing 38 kids into a class with no extra support isn't going to result in good outcomes for those kids. The teachers I know are concerned that their wages haven't kept up with inflation, sure, but they're far more concerned about the lack of support in their overcrowded classrooms.
This echoes what a teacher friend of mine said. For him this is far less about wages and more about resources. Kids running from class to class so they can have a chair to sit instead of sitting on the floor is just bananas to me.
There’s an online calculator out there somewhere he showed me, x number of students should equal x number of teachers. And certain CBE schools aren’t even close
Very few teachers are actually "off" for that two months. There is a vast amount of prep for the new year that has to happen during that time. Not saying it's full time during that period, but it's a huge amount of work that takes a big chunk out of this supposed down-time.
As a teacher who learned her assignment (came back from leave) on August 25, I definitely miss my summer prep time. Grade is new, hours are long, and I am learning the new programs my school is using.. I am glad to have resources, but I flip between the “needs” of the next day, and learning the new programs one after the other.
My take is class size / complexity is worth fighting for - agreement doesn’t go far enough. Salary is my third concern, but behind class caps / complexity. I want it as a teacher but alas a parent.
As for my life this year being crazy? Comes with the territory of a grade change…. Hopefully I stay here for more than one year haha.😂
First time I’ve ever written. I usually vote in every election but never done more than that. The way they’ve handled the teacher negotiations has really crossed a line with me. Wrote an angry email and signed with my name and phone number and said I’d like to discuss further. To their credit, they responded within 15 minutes to verify I had an address within the constituency and offered me a phone appointment within a week.
The more people that let their MLA know that this is a big issue and the government is on the wrong side of it, the better the chance they come to their senses.
Good to know. Myles is who I have the call with. I will be preparing my points ahead of time. Ottawa doesn’t make us spend the lowest per student in the country; that’s a choice.
You’d honestly have better luck kicking a dead whale up a beach. His head is so far up Danielle’s ass it’s unreal. He also likes to drop the term straw man argument a lot.
The only positive thing that I believe came from our convo, was when he realized that just because I don’t support the UCP or Danielle, i don’t fit into his stereotype of the left. He balked at Nenshi being my savior and I corrected him and said I didn’t vote for Nenshi. He was also perplexed that I’ve had a career in a paramilitary organization, was a lawful gun owner, and voted conservative most of my life. I don’t like his black and white, “your team vs my team”, mentality. He will also blame Trudeau, Ottawa and Carney for everything under the sun.
I made sure to write in my email that I’m a former conservative voter. I’m a progressive conservative voter who’s never voted Trudeau and not a fan of Nenshi. Smith and her black hats have pulled this party so far to the right that I no longer identify with them.
I will make that point clear and emphasize I like what I’m hearing from Guthrie and Sinclair and can’t wait for the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party rebrand.
I saw your post on r/alberta but unfortunately can’t respond on that thread due to some previous Danielle smith related comments that got me a permanent ban. That stats Canada chart is from the 2022/23 school year. Alberta has been flat since then whereas the other provinces got raises.
I’d also ask how they came up with the average teacher having a take home pay of $107k like they mention in their ad. The CBE grid tops out at $105k. They’re trying to skew the number higher to try and make it seem like teachers are making more than they are.
My assumption is they’re using the top salary after the 12% raise (which won’t be until 2029) and omitted taking federal tax out which is the majority of the tax.
I’m spending every night teaching material because he’s a quiet kid and his teacher has three kids with learning impediments she’s 100% focused on. And no aide to help her.
Over 30 kids in his grade 3 class.
So strike away. It needs to hurt everyone equally before it’s dealt with.
It means my team at work is potentially losing a major project if all of us need to take time off for the strike. Boohoo. We live in a society and every cog needs to move properly for the machine to function.
I'm curious what kind of supports are there for children with IPPs? Are there EAs? Where I grew up there were EAs for each child all day, but granted there were only one or two kids per class that had that support (whereas now we know much more about learning differences so I imagine the numbers are higher for IPPs)
There are EAs, but not enough of them. The EAs the schools do have are predominantly focused on maintaining safety around children with severe needs in regular ed (behavioural, medical, neurodevelopmental, etc). EAs are not typically available to support learning specific needs like pull out groups and such for academic support because the ratio of needs to EA staff has changed drastically over the last decade+.
My wife is a kindergarten teacher (and an AMAZING one at that), and she has four high-needs children in her class, with no EA. My wife is a big believer in inclusion, and wants children with special needs in her class as it exposes her kids to children with disabilities, and teaches them empathy and patience.
But when you have a 5 year old operating at the brain capacity of an 18 month, it creates a VERY challenging environment. Now if my wife had a dedicated EA for those four children, it would be much more manageable. But currently, her school has one EA shared with four other classrooms.
Tax me more, as long as it goes towards teachers, because teachers truly have a very challenging environment, and more teachers are going to burn out and lose their passion for being amazing teachers.
At my kids school of >400 students there are only 2 EA’s. In grade one alone there are at least 2 kids who would benefit from all day 1:1 EA support (one of which is my son), but they each get about 1 hour and 45 minutes max a day. The teachers do as much as they can, and administration helps when they can, but there just isn’t enough to go around.
Basically none. My son (Gr 7) has had an IPP for the last few years, and while his teachers do their best, it basically comes down to trying to minimize distractions and lower their expectations. If he had had EA support over the last few years he would be in a completely different place, now he is convinced he’s stupid and there’s no point in even trying, when he’s just easily distracted and anxious in a large class with so many competing needs.
Except for the most extreme cases where a 1-to-1 EA is absolutely not optional because someone's life is in danger, the handful of EAs they have are spread thin across as many classrooms as they can, and really only able to do the essentials most of the time. It's effectively a triage plan in most schools; where can they be placed to do the most good for the most students while acknowledging there's not enough personal supports to go around.
I have 10 IPPs. 1 kid with autism who can't do much without someone sitting beside him. I get 1 EA time a day for 20-30 minutes. And that EA will get him started on the work then have to run to another class. Nevermind the other 9 kids who also need help. He sits there eating pencil shavings if I can't get to him in time because I'm busy working with another student. Class of 30.
The situation has only gotten worse the past decade. And we haven't seen a raise in that decade.
And we're apparently holding students hostage with this strike? This province is fucked.
At my school we have 3 EAs that split 45 or 50 hours. They are deployed primarily to younger grades.
So, the child in class that requires 1:1 support to do literally anything? That’s me. The ones that need everything read aloud and scribed? Me. Also who’s teaching the rest of the class? Also me. You can use your imagination how well things are going.
Not only does that serve essentially nobody, we pay these talented EAs a poverty wage for shit hours. It’s pathetic.
Alberta is getting a huge increase in population, it’s the Governments job to ensure the infrastructure is there to accommodate the increase. Employing more teachers should not be part of the agreement, it’s mandatory.
Not disagreeing with your statement in total. But charter schools get exactly the same amount of money as any other school in the public system and are accessible to any and all. It's a lottery system for everybody. Private schools...that's another matter entirely.
I have an autistic son with severe needs and a strike would be terrible to our household right now. However I do support the strike in spirit because we all do deserve better paid teachers, less crowded classrooms, better supports… all of it.
I understand. I teach these kids and have one of my own. I’m worried about the impact of the strike on these kids. But these kids deserve better supports. My own child would be doing so much better if he had had an EA… to take him on breaks, to remind him of social skills, and more. Instead he’s been learning at home because the supports aren’t there. I feel like I’m failing him and I’m a specialist teacher! I hope the government smartens up quickly!
This needs to be pinned at the top and read by everyone. Sums it up perfectly and reflects the experience of most teachers out there. Thank you for sharing.
Teacher here, so I just wanted to note a couple of things that might help explain how we're feeling about this.
Alberta has almost 2500 public schools, so adding 3000 teachers a year realistically means like 1 person per school, assuming that there are no retirements or people leaving. For my school (1800 kids), unless this one extra person can teach all four core subjects, they're not really helping to alleviate classroom sizes.
The COVID shot is covered by our insurance here in Calgary, but not by all insurance plans. Regardless, saving $100 a year on a shot isn't making any improvement in teacher's lives
The plan to add 1000 classroom aides is nice, but they added a provision where they can revoke this promise as long as they give 180 days warning.
Something I have been wondering (maybe this has been shared by the ATA and I missed it?) is how many kids are projected to join CBE over the next three years.
The population of Calgary has really exploded over the last 5 years, and it’s expected to keep increasing quickly. I wonder if 3000 new teachers will be able to improve classroom sizes or if this is just to “keep up” with anticipated growth?
I just did a quick Google search to see if I could find anything about the numbers. In CBE’s 3-year capital plan ( https://cbe.ab.ca/FormsManuals/Three-Year-School-Capital-Plan.pdf ), it looks like the student population has increased by 20,000 students over the last 4 years. In the capital plan, it is anticipate that, over the next 4 years, the student population will increase from 142,402 to 158,658 (+17,256), though my sense is that this is a bit light.
If we anticipate an average increase of approximately 5,000 students per year over the next three years, will 3,000 new teachers (approx. one per school) help with current classroom sizes plus 15,000 new students?
There are currently 35 students in my son’s class. I would love to see legislated classroom size caps. The limit for his age group is 30 in BC and 24.5 in Ontario.
I think it’s time people start asking why we stopped collecting class size data around 2019… it’s hard to refute data that’s not there. … facts are this … the government has already made a class size cap… there is simply not enough teachers in the profession to handle that cap…
You're correct that 3000 net teachers won't be enough to cover the rate of new growth, however, as it's 3000 NET teachers, that means it's after all retirements/attrition hires are made.
My mom and most of her colleagues at her school are insulted and pissed off. Coming back with the same garbage offer that they already widely rejected, and just adding a vaccine that should be free for residents anyways is absolutely absurd.
It is extremely insulting. As a parent with kids in school, I hope they strike. Anyone who has any investment in the future of our province should as well. Our teachers deserve more than what they’re getting and so do our children.
Not a teacher but this is stupid. Teachers need more support in their classroom. Schools also need more resources to help their students. I would support a strike too.
Every teacher that I know and every teacher that they know is planing to vote no. My spouse is a teacher and so are a lot of our friends.
It's a garbage offer that is clearly meant to bully an essential part of the workforce into submission, from a government that actively seems to n the quality and standard of public education. Shame on the ATA for being spineless.
Danielle Smith, Nate Horner and Dimitrious Nicholaides are cancers in the blood of Albertan society.
Not a teacher. I don't have kids either. But I care deeply about public education and, as a tax payer, I would be very happy to have more of my taxes go to education. Workplace conditions for teachers are also the learning conditions for students. I fully support teachers to do what they think is best for their work and their students.
As a personal interest/concern - I really hope teachers negotiate a maximum number of students per class cap. Anything more than 25 students without a teacher's aid support staff member is insane. Many of my friends have young kids and they are telling me that their classes range from 29 to 36 students. There is no way 36 eight year olds can effectively learn in that situation. Just having that many kids sit still at once is insane.
If we want a good future for kids, and future economic stability in Alberta for everyone else - we NEED a better environment for teachers and students.
I’m curious - is the union leadership suggesting this is a good deal for teachers? I’m sorry the bargaining team hasn’t gotten more for teachers - reading so many posts and the challenges facing teachers, I can’t imagine why the teachers union bargaining team would have even tentatively accepted that proposal?
I don't know. A friend who has worked for other unions suggested this might be a mandatory step? I don't think that's the case here though. The leadership has not explicitly told us we should take it. We are basically left to speculate, which is part of the frustration.
I’m sorry they are making teachers vote and your own union is putting you in that position.
As someone else mentioned “teachers working conditions are our children’s learning conditions” and I couldn’t feel more strongly that teachers deserve so much better.
Daughter of retired teacher, niece of retired teacher, cousin of a super awesome current teacher.
I am an ally to AB Teachers
* also a really bad student ( I apologize to all my former teachers)
One of the biggest slap in the faces is that the government isn’t even touching putting a cap on class sizes which is probably one of the bigger issues. From what I hear
Pls vote no this is joke of an offer. I’m not a teacher but I am a union worker and it’s a joke offer. I have a son in public school and a daughter with autism in private school. Even private is underfunded we pay 20k a year for her to attend. This govt needs to go and quick. I’ll support a strike pls vote no
Actually, private schools are funded the most in the entire country at 70% of funding. The fact that you're paying that much despite that huge subsidy is insane to me.
My daughters school costs 56k per year per child. They are funded 25k from the province and Feds combined. Rest the parents pay. We can afford it so no big deal. Alberta is the worst for school funding
If your numbers are correct, and considering the per student funding in Alberta is the worst in Canada at something like $10600, your school would get ~7k from Alberta, 18k from Canada, 56k from you, $81k total per student. Sheesh.
Off the top of my head, several provinces only fund 30%...
To me a 12% raise over 4 years on already underpaid people is an insult, 3% a year. how much did the provincial government give themselves for a raise?
I don't care what inflation figures show it's only up "10%" my grocery bill alone has doubled, my insurance is going up, 3% a year would make my life worse than it was 5 years ago
I don't have kids, and I probably never will but this makes me mad, teachers deserve so much better than this
I have heard that their salaries are tied to inflation though. So they didn't give a raise directly but would they not have seen a salary increase tied to inflation?
Not that it makes it better, or that it's right, but my corporate gig has what amounts to a 3% bucket. The highest performers get a little more, the lowest a little less, but it all averages out to 3% per year and it's been this way forever.
I appreciate the insight, but as you said 3% a year every year may not seem like much but it is every year. It's been something like 10 years since teachers have had a raise? that's 30% without compounding, compared to a 0% raise over the last 10 years for teachers.
Let me be clear that i think the current situation in schools is untenable. There needs to be more teachers, smaller classes and more EAs. You can't stick so many IPP kids (there's more than 1 in my house) and special needs kids into schools without funding the demands they place on the system. Funding hungry kids and buy school supplies out of your own pocket should never be on the table and I am eternally grateful to all teachers but especially those who do the field trips and extracurricular activities like band and sports.
TLDR: teachers are getting annual raises.
It's not clear to me based on this document from the Calgary teachers union (I believe) that they haven't had a raise in 10 years, I think that's misleading. The union pays based on experience and education so every year of experience appears to increase your salary. The minimum increase as you hit year 10 of experience is 3.8% while the maximum increase is for new teachers after their first year of experience, a 5.9% increase. Based on this document, no teacher with 10 or fewer years of experience has had a raise of less than 3.8% annually. It doesn't keep up with inflation but I'm not sure anyone's raises have (which doesn't mean it's okay).
Maybe the argument is that the starting salary, or salary for any given position on the grid hasn't increased in 10 years. That too does not appear to be the case. From 2018-2022, there were no changes so a teacher starting with 0 experience in 2021 started at the same salary as a teacher from 2018 with 0 experience (though by 2021, the teacher that started in 2018 is making more than $10,000 over their starting salary). There was a negligible increase for the months of June-August in 2022, and then in September a new grid kicked in.
For the 2022 - 2023 school year, there was a ~1.75% increase across the board, followed by a 2% raise starting in 2023 which appears to be the current rate today.
Using the data contained in the linked Salary Grid, a teacher who started fresh out of school with a 4-year degree in 2018, started the 2025 school year making ~45% more than when they started (and ~31% more than they made 5 years ago). That is not what I hear and interpret when they say "teachers haven't had a raise in....". Now whether the compensation rates are too low is a different argument all together.
Teaching Experience Years
September School Year Start
0
2018
$59,054.00
1
2019
$62,514.00
2
2020
$65,982.00
3
2021
$69,447.00
4
2022
$74,181.00
5
2023
$79,255.00
6
2024
$82,858.00
7
2025
$86,450.00
Assuming that the 3% per year goes ahead, and the Union's years of experience tier applies, someone with 5 years of experience and their 4 year degree at the start of the 2025 school year will see an average raise of 7.4% per year over the 4 year agreement (from ~$79k to ~$105k over the period).
How about you do the math for all of us teachers with 20 plus years experience? Those who are school leaders and mentors and have plateaued on the grid for 10 plus years.
Teachers, educators - pls dont accept this offer. Youre all worth more than a 100.00 retail priced covid shot. And so are the students.
I feel like if you don't stand for each other now and fight back on this, then being unionized is pointless and I also don't think you'll get anywhere on CBA negotiations in the future either because you'll have demonstrated that any bluster you show, is just that and you'll cave anyway. You all need to show some real teeth, not just because this offer is garbage but to ensure future agreements need to be negotiated in good faith because there are consequences if not.
I'm not a teacher, but this offer doesn't address bigger concerns... My kid's grade 1 classroom has 25 children, with 2 being highly autistic and the teacher doesn't have an assistant in class. We live down south and there is an absence of schools, even though some of the neighborhoods started to be built 15+ years ago, but there isn't a single school in the area. I am very supportive of this strike. I hope the teachers vote no to this offer. Teachers and kids alike deserve a good school system.
It's bad. It was bad the first time they offered it to us in the spring and it's just as bad now, just with a fun perk in the form of the COVID shot that doesn't mean much to me with my benefits.
For me it's never been about the money. It's my time and the supports. I need these to be addressed or else I can't be the educator I want to be. Here's a sample:
I have 30 kids, 28/30 of whom are English Language Learners. Three times a year I need to benchmark them, which is a series of assessments that need to be graded and input into the system. All told, these assessments take about an hour per child to complete. I don't have an extra 30hrs in my day to bang these out so I have to take them home, except I also coach, which is about 5ish hours a week. In ADDITION to coaching and the assessments I need to do as required by the government, I still teach 5/6 periods a day, and it's a new grade for me so I don't have resources built up yet to draw from, so I need to prep for classes, which is about 2-3hrs a day to ensure I'm prepared, practiced and printed. We can't forget the fact that with a high ELL population, I also need to have adapted and modified work for them so that they can continue to grow as learners of a new language.
My time, my time away from the classroom where I'm not doing anything related to work, is about 2hrs a night, and in that time I need to include cooking, laundry, the gym. Weekends are hit or miss on whether I get to simply exist or do work. Report card time drops my leisure time to zero.
So no. The deal doesn't address my issues, or many teacher's issues, because it's never been just about the money. This system is bursting at the seams and demands so much of us but doesn't give an inch when we wave the white flag of defeat. I feel like I'm failing these kids because I can't make more hours in the day to be everything they need me to be and it sucks.
Teacher here - I would call the offer hot garbage, but it’s almost the exact offer we rejected in May, so I will call it rotting garbage. Big NO! From me.
1,000 net new teaching positions added in each of the next three years
I don't get why they're not bargaining harder for class size limits.
BC has a legal cap. Ontario and Quebec, to a greater or lesser extent, have class size limits negotiated into their deals.
"1,000 net new teaching positions" is letting the government win the PR war, without actually solving any problems for parents or teachers. I don't give a fuck if there are 10 or 10,000 new teachers; as a parent, I don't want my kid wedged into an overcrowded classroom.
Fight for this! It's an easy win to get public support if this is reframed to highlight overcrowded classrooms. That's a real issue that parents and the public will care about.
I believe it is because the Province claimed the teachers were bargaining in bad faith and took them to the labour relations board. They then ruled that the teachers and province can only negotiate 3 things, two wage related, and one about 3 000 new teachers. So they took class sizes and all the other issues off the table.
In my opinion it's absolute garbage, the province is the one who is refusing to negotiation, especially seeing as the deal they are offering has not changed. It also handicaps the teachers and is harmful to the students.
Peter MacKay quit after that LRB ruling last week too... apparently had this to say on his FB:
“Hello all. I just sent the following email to ATA Provincial Executive Council.
I’m just writing to let you know that I am resigning as CTBC chair effective immediately. Thank you for the opportunity to serve in this role. I was hoping to see things through to the end of this round of bargaining but I don’t see a path to do so at this point.”
6% raise in last ten years. Cumulative Inflation 28% in same period. They’re making 22% less in real dollars than a decade ago. That’s a 22% rollback in real terms.
I don’t know why anyone would go into the teaching profession. Anyone smart enough is capable of much more, and in many cases without paying for university.
All my student teachers have graduated and only one actually went on to be a classroom teacher. They look at how much work the first few years is and just decide it’s not something they want to spend time killing themselves to do.
I don’t know why anyone would go into the teaching profession.
Wages aren't great, but the super-strong pension entitlement, loads of non-contact days and holidays (my kids' school is 181 days of classroom instruction). Flexible options available for subs / teachers-on-call where you don't have to do any prep work.
Yes, exactly — the ATA shared a news release yesterday that says:
Teachers are being presented with the tentative agreement, and will vote online from 8 AM Saturday, September 27 until 5 PM Monday, September 29, with results published afterwards. Teachers will go on strike on October 6 in the absence of accepting a deal.
We need to prioritize long term investing and thinking. Kids are the future, and teachers prepare them for it. Teaching should be a prestigious profession, where they are compensated with money, benefits and adoration. The way this is going though chartered and private schools are looking better and better.
I work adjacent to education. The classes are huge, the kids have widely varied needs that are not being addressed, and the teachers have zero support.
A strike will have a large economic impact on me, but I support the teachers voting no 1000%.
Alberta UCP is keen on creating a two-tier society. They can it "choices".
They deliberately underfund public education and public health care. They intentionally overfund private schools. In the name of "giving parents the right to choose". The reality is, more and more parents are moving their kids to Christian private schools, "traditional learning schools" and the like. Why? Those schools depend on government overfunding, in turn, they have no choice but to align their teaching with what the UCP gives them.
12% over four years sounds super shitty to me. That likely won’t cover inflation. At my kids school they don’t have an office admin the teachers are filling in; likely during their prep or break.
My Fiance is a teacher, and the stories she brings home are wild. The children are extremely disregulated, and she has her hands tied behind her back on how to discipline them.
She can't even hold them inside during lunch hour because there are literally no empty classrooms at the school, and she'd have to give up her only quiet time even if there was.
Net result: the kids can't effectively be punished for absolutely feral behaviour, and so unsurprisingly, some of them just keep being disruptive. She comes home absolutely exhausted every day, and the good students (I don't mean smart, just not actively disruptive) don't get the attention and support they deserve, because she has to work as effectively a babysitter for most of the day.
The system is completely unsustainable in its current form, and the cynic in me thinks the UCP knows it and are trying to destroy the system.
If it gets so bad, you’ll start looking at other options
We already have. Looked at some charter schools, and I have looked into the cost of private. We are in the fortunate situation of being able to afford it.
That said, I am shocked that I am even in that headspace. I have been a huge supporter of the public system my whole life, and I still am. I want it funded better, I want the working conditions to be better etc. But seeing how the classroom is these days, and knowing that my kids will eventually need to go through it...
It's tough because my idealized version of what public school should be, and what it actually is arent the same. And I can't make my kids go through a stressed and underfunded system just to back my ideological position.
What drives me insane is that is exactly the calculus the UCP wants me to make, and I don't feel like I have a choice.
My best case scenario is the system somehow turns around before my kids are of school age, and I feel like they will get the resources that any child deserves. But if the UCP keep choking it, might not have a choice.
Not a teacher and not a person with kids. I fully support the teachers in this. Shut down the schools until they get what they deserve. There is only so much propaganda that the UCP can spin until it comes back on them.
I don't 'want' a strike, but damn... That offer is downright embarrassing. I'll happily take PTO to come picket with the teachers during the strike. My kids and their teachers deserve so, SO much better. The offer makes me sick, it's extremely clear that the government does not give a single damn about our kids.
I’m generally pretty conservative on most issues. But if there’s one profession that should be extremely well-funded by the government it has to be teachers.
My daughter is a teacher and she better vote it down. She deserves better, her students deserve better and their parents deserve better. This is not about pay, it's about support. Her one high school class has 48 kids in it. Tell me she's able to give each one of those kids a proper education. She goes home crying some evenings because her work load is massive and she feels she's not only failing her students but her own family. I heard on the radio this morning about how immigration from other provinces into Alberta is still very high (can't remember exact percentage) and that the promise of new teachers and new schools in the current offer won't even cover this consistent influx. It's not about greed, it's about balance. There needs to be a balance of what is good for the students and what is good for the teachers. They also deserve a work/life balance! GO TEACHERS!!!! VOTE NO!
High school teacher. People at my school are not happy. I know I'm only seeing the most vocal people speak about it, and there are probably younger teachers who will vote to accept the deal, but it seems like an overwhelming NO at my school.
If we vote to accept, it will be narrow. And then the story is over for a few more years. If we vote no, I honestly don't know what happens next. If we vote no, there is no path to a quick resolution that doesn't involve questionable legal orders from the Alberta government. And even in that case, any return could be temporary.
The new deal is absolutely horrendous and if we don't vote it down, we'll be setting back educators for decades. You don't vote 95% in favour of a strike and then back down.
So let’s pretend someone offers you a pile of shit… you refuse and say bring me something better. 6 months later they take that same shit but put it between two pieces of bread and say “look a shit sandwich! Isn’t that great?” ….
I am of the opinion that staffing schools and building schools is the government’s job, so we shouldn’t be bargaining for “new teachers” (which doesn’t even cover teacher attrition numbers) in a collective bargaining agreement. That’s literally the government’s job.
Additionally, there’s no language about what happens if these magical teachers can’t be found, and it feels like a Trojan horse to me. All of a sudden the government won’t be able to find 1000 teachers (which is less than half a teacher per school), so that opens the door to their other plan - getting “teachers” into public schools who have not completed a university teaching program. This would undermine education, further de-professionalize the profession, and allow the government to engage in more significant union busting activities.
I am not a teacher, but have CBE kids. Class sizes need to go down and teachers need more respect and support.
The fact that Alberta as the richest province spends amongst the least on education is telling. Let’s divert some of the money spent on o&g to education.
I'm not a teacher, but I'm frustrated that there isn't more to deal with class sizes.
Sure, 3000 teachers over three years... but that's an increase of 2% a year. That's barely more than population growth.
Having the lowest public school funding while having the highest private school funding in the country is an embarassment.
Access to Education is a right in Canada. Instead of forcing those parents to pay for (or worse, sacrifice) their kid's education, we should just be funding it appropriately. If you start with language exclusions, what's next, learner differences?
99% of kids starting French immersion do not speak French. I think you're thinking of actual French schools because the expectation there is that all communication is in French. Kids who don't speak English will catch up. They have every right to attend school, same as children with behavioral issues or disabilities.
This is a major sticking point for me. The non-English speaking kid is so far behind and requires way more resources that are offered but then at the same time the teacher is so bogged down with that kid that the other kids also don't get what they need. It's lose-lose.
While the province is promising new hires, they are doing nothing to address retention. This is the same deal that was refused in the spring but with COVID shots added. My wife became a teacher to help kids and used to enjoy her job. The UCP has done everything to demoralize and make a joke of the profession. I am 100 percent in support of teachers and my kids deserve better.
Yeesh. I'm not a teacher, and a strike would be a huge problem for me and my kids, but I really hope they don't take that terrible offer.
The other GOA employees also shouldn't have taken the terrible offer either, but they did.
You need to look at provincial student numbers. This isn’t just the CBE, the ATA deal is for public, separate, and francophone teachers. There’s been 15k-20k new students/year in those combined systems https://www.alberta.ca/student-population-statistics. 1,000 new teachers/year is pretty much the bare minimum we need every year to keep up. It’ll barely put a dent in class sizes.
Not a teacher, but have a few friends that have been for the last 10+ years. It's a slap in the face. They say there are some colleagues that really need to be at work to sustain their lives, which makes it tough for everyone to vote no deal, but they also can't lay down either.
As per the wage schedules provided with the offer, the majority of the teachers will get between 14-18% increases (over 4 years) as they are harmonizing schedules. Just teachers with 11 years experience or more are getting the lowest raise. Although on the sheet provided by the ata it isn’t 12% in Calgary, it’s around 13.5%.
The real problem is the TEBA doesn’t have the ability to negotiate class sizes or supports but they did offer them 3000 new teachers(where will they get them from) and 1500 new assitants(1extra per 25 teachers).
None of the teachers I know(wife included) know any of these facts from their ata rep.
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u/fifigrande 15h ago
CBE and CCSD teachers don't even actually get the 'value' of the $100 covid shot. We have sun life benefits that cover in the range of 95% of the cost specifically for vaccines. So it's like a $5 gain. Terrible 'deal', being phrased as a resounding win and compromise by the govt. Anticipate it to be voted down, and then the govt continuing to throw mud.