On the second day of a teachers' strike that has temporarily shuttered schools across Alberta, the education minister signalled a willingness to negotiate how many new staff members need to be hired, but added he's still hesitant to agree to limits on classroom sizes.
Province and teachers are still in exploratory talks on Day 2 of strike
Andrew Jeffrey · CBC News
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On the second day of a teachers' strike that has temporarily shuttered schools across Alberta, the education minister signalled a willingness to negotiate how many new staff members need to be hired, but added he's still hesitant to agree to limits on classroom sizes.
Demetrios Nicolaides, Alberta's education minister, told CBC Radio's The Calgary Eyeopener on Tuesday that after teachers rejected an offer last week that would have committed the province to hiring 3,000 more teachers and more than 1,500 educational assistants, the provincial government is open to discussing offers that include larger staffing adjustments.
"If we need to hire 4,500 teachers, 4,000 teachers; if we need to hire 2,000 EAs instead of 1,500; we're very happy to have those conversations and look at making those adjustments," said Nicolaides.
"If there's more that we can do in that regard, we're happy to explore it."
LISTEN | Alberta's education minister on where negotiations stand during teachers' strike: Calgary Eyeopener11:19Day two of Alberta teachers' strike
But Alberta Teachers' Association president Jason Schilling said on Tuesday that teachers are looking for more when it comes to improving education funding and supports for teachers to accomplish their jobs. He said teachers need to see more work done to address class size and complexity.
"We can talk about the student-teacher ratio, but government has also indicated that they're not willing to do that," said Schilling. "They'll have to hammer that out at the negotiation table to see just where we can fall in terms of a compromise to find a path forward."
Differences over capping class sizes
Established student-teacher ratios or a cap on classroom sizes is something the province is hesitant to agree to, said Nicolaides. He argued he's seen research indicating limits on classroom sizes provide little to no impact on student academic achievement.
After the 2002 Alberta teachers strike, the Progressive Conservative government at the time struck Alberta's Commission on Learning. The following year, it recommended establishing guidelines for average class sizes at each grade, with adequate funding to meet these guidelines.
But in 2019, the UCP government stopped counting class sizes, and there's been no further update in Alberta to class composition standards in the more than two decades since the 2003 report.
Schilling said the ATA presented a similar system earlier in negotiations, which the province rejected. He's also noted that Alberta would need to hire more than 5,000 teachers to reach what the report recommended in 2003.
Schilling said that while the province can point to reports that say teacher effectiveness is more important than class size, more funding and resources are needed for teachers to be more effective. He added teachers have seen firsthand that smaller classes make a difference, noting his own experience teaching classes of various sizes.
"Forty-two students was a struggle to make sure that they each got my attention, that I could spend time with them one-on-one to look at their writing, to assist them with their reading, to look at their homework, than I could when I had 25 kids," said Schilling.
More than that, Schilling argued the province should have been hiring educational staff and building schools for years prior to the current round of negotiations.
"It's not something we should have to bargain for in order to increase our numbers in schools," said Schilling.
"They don't need a teachers' contract to hire people to work in schools. That, in fact, is their job. So we could talk about it at the table, but they should be doing it anyway."
Nicolaides and Schilling both said on Tuesday the two sides are currently in exploratory discussions, working toward returning to more formal negotiations.
Province risks hit to reputation during strike: prof
Deteriorating classroom conditions and a lack of support for teachers are the source of a lot of the frustration driving the strike, Jason Foster, a labour relations professor at Athabasca University, told Alberta at Noon on Tuesday.
He said that even if Alberta is open to hiring more teachers, to be competitive with other provinces it needs to ensure it's offering conditions in which educators want to work.
LISTEN | Alberta at Noon hears from listeners during second day of the strike: Alberta at Noon52:39How you're feeling during the teachers' strike
"You can't just say we're going to magically make 5,000 teachers appear by throwing some money at the problem. You also need to say, 'What are the kinds of conditions those teachers are going to come and work in?'" said Foster.
A labour dispute of the scale Alberta's teachers are currently embroiled in won't attract more workers, Foster added.
"I think all of us as Albertans will pay a bit of a consequence of the reputational hit that our government is taking in terms of how it's treating its teachers."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Jeffrey is a multimedia journalist with CBC Calgary. He previously worked for CBC News in his hometown of Edmonton, reported for the StarMetro Calgary, and worked as an editor for Toronto-based magazines Strategy and Realscreen. You can reach him at andrew.jeffrey@cbc.ca.
With files from Alberta at Noon and The Calgary Eyeopener
