Class size among biggest sticking points as Alberta teachers’ strike drags on

Fifty-one thousand teachers and 750,000 students should be in the classroom, but instead many are at rallies in Edmonton and Calgary.

Everyone agrees it’s time for the provincewide teachers’ strike to end, but not everyone agrees on just how that should happen.

In Calgary, two protests attracted dozens in red.

In Edmonton, it was thousands.

The two sides are still far apart.

One of the biggest sticking points is class size.

“I had 50 elementary kids in a class at a time, and I was the only adult in the room with those students,” said Josie Kirkpatrick.

“I just think that was overwhelming. It was unmanageable.”

A teacher of almost two decades, Kirkpatrick is currently on leave.

She’s trying to land a spot on city council, motivated by her time spent in the education system.

“You really need to be able to cater to all of the different needs in the classroom, and so they really need to put a cap on class sizes,” she said.

On Wednesday, Premier Danielle Smith claimed simply dividing the number of students by teachers should result in 21 kids per class.

But the Alberta Teachers’ Association says not every member is a classroom teacher—some are counsellors, librarians and specialists.

“We really should not be reaching 30-plus kids on a regular basis,” said Medeana Moussa with Support Our Students Alberta.

“That is chaos. That is not education.”

Alberta doesn’t track exactly how many students are in classrooms, but the government does want to get numbers down.

It says, however, a hard cap would mean more infrastructure and staffing spending than is realistic right now.

The premier isn’t in favour of back-to-work legislation, but it could still be coming.

“If we don’t have an agreement, you might be looking for something in the week of Oct. 27,” she said.

“I think the measure is, is it beginning to cause irreparable harm? And everybody will have a different interpretation of when that is.”