Edmonton charter school sees uptick in interest ahead of potential teacher strike

Parents across Alberta are bracing themselves, waiting to see if kids will be heading back to school after the Labour Day long weekend, or if teachers will walk off the job as negotiations continue.

In June, teachers voted for a strike, with 94 per cent of the 39,000 votes cast in favour of strike action with the union asking for better classroom sizes, resources and wages. After the vote, teachers had 120 days to take action, making the deadline for a possible strike on Oct. 7.

This will leave parents struggling for childcare with some considering for other options.

The Aurora Academic Charter School in Edmonton says they have been getting more calls from parents looking to enroll their children in the school, hoping to avoid disruption that will come due to the potential teachers strike.

Teachers in most charter schools are not members of the Alberta Teachers’ Association’s bargaining group that currently have a strike mandate and Superintendent Ian Gray of the Aurora Academic Charter School suspects that’s why they have been getting many calls from parents who are looking to enroll their kids.

However, Gray says that they are full and already have 2,800 students waitlisted.

The teachers at the Aurora Academic Charter School are getting ready for the first day of school next week. “We’ve grown quite a bit this year. We added a new school, so there’s been a lot of work to get that ready for parents,” said Ian Gray, superintendent of the school.

“We have a lot of parents saying, ‘Hey, we want to come here. We’ve been on your wait list now since our child was born. What did we do?’ And it’s very sad for us to tell many of those people to stay on the wait list,” he added.

Gray says there has been an increase in interest for the non-profit school model even outside the strike, but even with their growing campus and adding a new high school, they can’t keep up.

“We do not have the facility. It’s not an issue of parents or the number of people who want to come. It’s an issue of space. We simply don’t have the space to put more students, even if they did want to come, or we would have opened it up to those 2,800 parents (on the wait list).”

Jason Schilling, president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association recognizes anxiety from the parents regarding their children’s education. “Ultimately, parents have a choice about what they want to do with their child’s education around that,” he said.

But he is encouraging parents to understand that teachers are fighting for their pay, smaller class size and better student resources.

“Teachers have given a strong mandate for strike action that happened in the spring, and they’re willing to take that step forward if we don’t see the improvements that we need in our classrooms, because teachers are working for the betterment of students and they want to ensure that students have all the tools available to them as teachers need them as well to be successful.”

The Alberta Teachers’ Association and the government are returning to the bargaining table next week. Schilling hopes they come out of the Aug. 29 meeting with an agreement. If that doesn’t happen, the association will need to give 72 hours notice before a strike and the same for the province for a lockout.