{"id":193766,"date":"2025-10-06T20:19:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T20:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/193766\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T20:19:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T20:19:13","slug":"enough-is-enough-alberta-teachers-association-defends-provincewide-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/193766\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Enough is enough\u2019: Alberta Teachers\u2019 Association defends provincewide strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Alberta Teachers\u2019 Association had some harsh words for the provincial government as it defended the decision by Alberta\u2019s 51,000 teachers to walk off the job Monday, the first day of a provincewide teachers strike.<\/p>\n

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During a press conference Monday morning in Edmonton, ATA president Jason Schilling repeated teachers\u2019 call for more resources for overcrowded schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re tired of a public education system that is treated like an inconvenient cost instead of a valued investment for our future,\u201d Schilling said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are tired of a lack of resources for teaching and support for the students who we teach. We did not become teachers to leave our classrooms behind and our students in this way. We became teachers because we want to make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teachers overwhelmingly rejected the government\u2019s latest offer in a vote late last month, which included a 12 per cent pay raise over four years, a government promise to hire 3,000 more teachers to address class sizes and money to cover the cost of a COVID-19 vaccine.<\/p>\n

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The ATA claims the government\u2019s hiring offer is a drop in the bucket compared with what\u2019s needed and at least 5,000 more teachers are needed to meet desired student-teacher ratios.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe became teachers because we want to make a difference, and when the system is broken and in crisis like this one, when the ability to do our jobs is ineffectively compromised, when the provincial government continually disrespects the teaching profession and its members, then speaking up becomes our responsibility,\u201d Schilling said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis strike is not just about us. It\u2019s for the students who can\u2019t get the education they deserve.\u201d<\/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 set to strike after rejecting government\u2019s contract offer\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Premier Danielle Smith, who is in Quebec, where she is scheduled to give a speech to the Montreal Chamber of Commerce, responded to the strike by calling for teachers to return to the bargaining table.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe teachers set this arbitrary deadline of Oct. 6, and we\u2019ve asked them to call off the strike and to come back to negotiating. We don\u2019t think we\u2019re that far apart. We think our wage offer is very fair,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were the ones who have unfortunately made the decision to walk off the job and we\u2019d like them to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schilling said Friday that the two sides have resumed \u201cexploratory conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when asked Monday about the status of those negotiations, he said, \u201cWe need to make sure that we\u2019re having conversations that are going to give concrete changes to the way that schools are operating right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The strike is affecting 700,000 students across 2,500 public, separate and francophone schools in the province.<\/p>\n

As for how long it could last, Schilling said, \u201cI can\u2019t give you a definite answer. Ideally, we would like to be able to get a solution that is going to work in our schools and that\u2019s going to for teachers, families and the association.\u201d<\/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 schools set to close as teachers\u2019 strike looms\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Alberta Teachers\u2019 Association had some harsh words for the provincial government as it defended the decision by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[64916,549,43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-193766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-alberta-teachers-strike","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193766","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=193766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}