Schools across Alberta remain empty three weeks later, as teachers wait for a new contract with the provincial government focused on smaller classrooms and more student support.

Several teachers are growing frustrated that education is not a priority for the government and have been left in the dark regarding the new contract. For Cole Olson, a teacher at Fleetwood Bawden elementary school, everything is up in the air until the new details are worked out.  

Class room sizes are increasing every year, which has brought challenges when trying to giving all students the same level of care. Olson says it’s near impossible to give students the right amount of care with over 28 students per classrooms.  

Sharon Willms-Laing, Vice-principal at Joyce Fair Barn middle school says things need to change to help teachers help high needs students. 

“One particular student pulled my hair and left bruises on my body and scratched up my face,” Willms-Laing says and stories like this are sadly common across School District 51 as just one of several school divisions seeing these challenges show up in the class room and little support to help them.

Willms-Lang knows it’s what they signed up for as a teacher, but she’s glad people are speaking up now about the less than hospitable conditions in the classroom. 

“What I am happy about is that the public knows about the government’s funding education and how flawed it is,” Willms-Laing says.

She is also encouraged with the majority of parents supporting teachers as she is hoping the government will take their needs seriously, by reducing the number of students in a classroom and provide overall better environments for children to learn.  

Olson is fighting for similar issues as Willms-Laing saying out of everything that they are fighting for, like the class sizes and less complex systems, the biggest thing he wants changed is the respect for public education by the government and valuing having educated citizens in this province.

For teachers it doesn’t feel like the government values education as it should and have only made things more difficult for teachers over the years. Schools’ budgets have gotten tighter and teachers have felt the difference, losing more teachers to cuts and having more responsibility fall at the teachers’ feet because there’s no one else to pick up the slack.

But they can’t keep going on like this forever. Olson wants to make the system better for when his own daughter starts school, his hopeful for the change but it’s not looking good if teacher will be forced back before the end of October, still with no regulation in sight.

“For the short term, I just hope the kids can get back and there’s openness to make changes for the positive,” Olson says, in the end he just wants the kids back inside the classroom. It might be a bit stressful catching up for lost time but it’s import for kids to come together in the classroom once again.