{"id":188773,"date":"2025-10-04T04:17:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T04:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/188773\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T04:17:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T04:17:11","slug":"calgary-students-stage-walkouts-protests-over-impact-of-looming-teachers-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/188773\/","title":{"rendered":"Calgary students stage walkouts, protests over impact of looming teachers\u2019 strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the threat of a strike by Alberta\u2019s 51,000 teachers within days of becoming a reality, dozens of Calgary high school students staged a walkout Friday to show their support for more education funding from the province.<\/p>\n

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With no new negotiations between the Alberta Teachers Association and the provincial government scheduled, it appears teachers will begin job action at 12 a.m. on Monday.<\/p>\n

While the province says it will be offering students and parents a home curriculum that can help them continue learning during the strike, the students who walked out of class say they\u2019re frustrated and concerned about the long-term impacts of a walkout.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tA group of students gather on a sidewalk outside St. Francis High School in northwest Calgary, calling for more funding for education,\u00a0 and expressing their concerns over the long term impact a teachers strike could have on their education.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could interfere with graduating. It could intervene with diplomas,\u201d said Lillian Gardippie, a Grade 12 student at St. Francis High School in northwest Calgary.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI just hope the teachers get what they deserve and the students as well don\u2019t get punished for the consequences of what the teachers are doing,\u201d added Gardippie.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLillian Gardippie, a grade 12 student at St. Francis High School says it is students who will suffer the consequences of the dispute between teachers and the province.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cLots of people view this as, oh yeah, it\u2019s like a spring break. It\u2019s not. This is not great for our education,\u201d said Savannah Vloervegh, who is also a Grade 12 student at St. Francis.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"For<\/p>\n

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She says the province\u2019s education system needs more funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur classes are full, and it\u2019s harder for teachers to teach people that need more attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI really want the teachers to get what they need because they\u2019re way too underpaid,\u201d said Shayla Eyk.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy class is really overfilled. There is barely any space between the rows of desks. And it\u2019s just like way too many people in the class. My teachers need more money and more support.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tAt Joane Cardinal-Schubert High School, in the south Calgary community of Seton, about 100 students marched in support of the teachers and more funding for education.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

At Joane Cardinal-Schubert High School in south Calgary, about 100 students marched in support of the teachers.<\/p>\n

Grade 11 student Bailey McQuarrie says she hopes the show of support for teachers provides \u201cmotivation for the government to pay them fairly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just the threat of a strike, she says, is already having an impact because of all the extracurricular activities that have been cancelled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a band camp and choir camp that we were going to go on \u2014 it\u2019s top tier, its the greatest experience a kid could ever have in high school, and both of those had to be cancelled because of the teachers going on strike.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marina Hughes, who has a son in kindergarten, said she\u2019s anxious about how long the strike will last and the impact it will have.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe\u2019s wondering when he\u2019s going back to school. I don\u2019t know, either. We really don\u2019t. So, he\u2019s a little confused. I think we\u2019re all a little bit confused. We all support the teachers,\u201d said Hughes.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCalgary parent, Marina Hughes, who has a son in kindergarten, says she supports the teachers, but is anxious about how long a strike could last and the impact it will have.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just tough for the parents, right? They\u2019ve got to rearrange their life and everything. Thankfully, I\u2019m a stay-at-home mom, so I can make plans easier. But I\u2019m assuming everything is going to be busy around the city. So, yeah, we\u2019ll see how it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The province has offered teachers a 12 per cent pay hike over four years along with a promise to hire 3,000 more teachers to address growing class sizes, as well as free COVID shots.<\/p>\n

However, in a vote last weekend, the teachers voted almost 90 per cent against the offer, setting the stage for the strike to begin on Monday, barring any last-minute breakthrough.<\/p>\n

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The walkout would affect more than 700,000 students across 2,500 public, separate and francophone schools.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlberta teachers strike likely after union rejects contract offer\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Reacting to an inquiry from Global News, a spokesperson in the office of Alberta Finance Minister, Nate Horner, sent a statement that says, \u201cTEBA (Teachers\u2019 Employer Bargaining Association) is ready, willing and able to get back to the table to come to a fair deal for our teachers at any time, once the ATA has consulted with their members on a reasonable deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe onus is on ATA leadership to determine what supports teachers are actually looking for,\u201d the statement added. \u201cTEBA has submitted a formal letter to the ATA asking them to come back to the table with creative solutions. We are waiting for the ATA\u2019s response. Our goal is always to keep our kids in school.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Alberta Teachers Association says it and the Government of Alberta have \u201cresumed exploratory conversations with regard to \u2026 a negotiated settlement.\u201d<\/p>\n

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However, the ATA says \u201cthe strike has not been averted\u201d and \u201cteachers will be commencing job action on Monday, Oct. 6.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the threat of a strike by Alberta\u2019s 51,000 teachers within days of becoming a reality, dozens of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[69498,64916,49,48,549,44,714],"class_list":{"0":"post-188773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-alberta-education","9":"tag-alberta-teachers-strike","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-education","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}