Students ‘falling through the cracks’, Alberta teachers say on eve of strike

The province of Alberta’s 51,000 teachers are poised to strike on Monday after nearly 90 per cent voted to reject the government’s latest offer. Negotiations continue.

A teachers’ strike is “imminent,” said the union representing Alberta’s educators Sunday, as thousands gathered in Edmonton on the eve of a strike.

“Right now, a strike is imminent. We will be on strike tomorrow (Monday). If a deal was to be negotiated, and ideally we would like that, we’d still have to go through our process of member affirmation meetings, voting and so on,” Alberta Teachers Association president Jason Schilling said.

It would take “about a week” for teachers to affirm any new deal, Schilling said.

He added that the union and the province are “back at the table in an exploratory way right now.”

“We’re just letting those talks happen at the table outside of the media eye so that we can try to find a solution to issues that teachers are seeing,” he said.

According to Schilling, Alberta has had “the least-funded education system for a decade.”

“It’s a crisis,” he said.

Teachers at Sunday’s rally called for the provincial government to better fund Alberta’s public education system.