The countdown is on: An Alberta teacher strike could be coming to a school near you on October 6.
Parents are hopeful for an eleventh-hour resolution, but in the meantime, they’re scrambling to find alternative learning and child care options.
The provincial government has just weeks to prepare, so now is the time to be creative and resourceful. However, it has options to support both students and parents if a strike moves forward.
Priority one is to ensure that learning can continue as much as possible during this time. The first way to do that is direct funding to parents whose children attend an affected school.
Helping parents with educational and childcare expenses during a teacher strike is nothing new. British Columbia did it during its 2014 teacher strike, and Ontario did the same thing during its teacher strike of 2020.
Alberta doesn’t release the daily cost of teacher compensation, but Ontario’s experience provides a good parallel. Ontario’s government estimates it paid teachers $60 million per day in 2020 to educate just over two million students. Applying that ratio to Alberta’s 738,660 students in public, Catholic, and francophone schools, we can estimate the province spends at least $21.4 million per day on teacher salaries. The government should ensure that funding is invested back into children so that, strike or not, learning won’t need to grind to a halt barely a month into the new school year.
First, giving financial support to parents would be practical and effective. Parents of affected students could use that money towards enrollment in other programs, like independent school tuition, transportation for a charter school (if they can get a spot in either one), online courses, or homeschooling.
For families who choose to wait out the strike, they could use the funding for a wide range of educational activities. Just as they do in so many other areas, parents will make the best choices for their children in the event of a strike. That could mean a field trip to places like Heritage Park or Elk Island Provincial Park. Tutoring services to ensure students don’t fall behind would be an equally legitimate expense. Additional funding could be offered to families of elementary students, who may face more significant child care challenges.
Beyond direct payments, there are countless other ways to keep students active and learning. The government could negotiate deals with institutions like museums, swimming pools, and science centres to offer free admission to affected students. Partnerships with local public transit would be key, too: students can’t access these experiences if they can’t get to them.
