Cell phone use and testing motions pass at Alberta Teachers’ Association General Assembly

More than 500 delegates from across the province met in Calgary Saturday for the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) General Assembly, where the topics included curriculum, classroom sizes, funding and students’ smartphone use.

Over 500 delegates from across the province met in Calgary Saturday for the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) General Assembly, where the topics included curriculum, classroom sizes, funding and students’ smartphone use.

“(There's a) big debate around funding and advocating to the government," said ATA president Jason Schilling. "We are the least-funded jurisdiction in all of Canada."

“That's having a huge impact on our class sizes," he added. "It's impacting our resources available to our students, especially for students with special needs.”

The annual meeting sets the ATA’s budget along with polices for the year ahead. According to Schilling, Alberta is not funding education at the Canadian average which is impacting education workers' ability to teach children.

“We also have the largest classroom sizes we have seen in a long time,"  said Schilling.  "We have students without resources, we have students not able to get the testing that they need to be done to learn about what some of their challenges are in learning and how to support them."

Those challenges have led to teachers leaving the profession, according to the ATA president.