The Alberta teachers' strike may be approaching this September, and with it the upcoming municipal elections. School board trustees are among the candidates — and their influence on Alberta's school boards is significant, especially because of their ability to allocate resources. Jeff Park, Executive Director of the Alberta Parents Union (APU), which advocates for quality education for Alberta students, predicts "It's very likely the potential for the strike will be the ballot question in the school board election."Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA) President Jason Schilling told CBC News about the issues teachers face: "Teachers want every student to thrive, but in overcrowded, undersupported classrooms, students are not getting the one-on-one attention they deserve.""And my colleagues do not have the tools they need to do their jobs properly, they're burning out under the weight of these impossible expectations." .APU said in a recent press release that trustees are responsible for the school boards, and "Class sizes and conditions are core school board responsibilities.""Almost every school board has seen the number of central office management employees go up. This, even while classroom employee numbers (especially education assistants, arguably the most cost-effective front-line employees) go down," APU said.They assert this is the primary reason the ATA wants to strike, and the allocation of funds and how they are managed are overseen by school board trustees.Park added from his interview with the Western Standard, "You can always spend more money, but we had the Alberta class size initiative."."The Progressive Conservatives brought it in, and it continued under the NDP, the United Conservative Party even continued it for a short time.""All we accomplished there was we spent $3 .4 billion on class size reductions while class sizes went up.""So it is not a total amount of money coming from the province problem, that is a priorities problem," Park claims.He also adds how school boards are implemented. ."All of those policies are set at the school board level," Park states.Park comments on how voters should navigate their decision to select a trustee candidate: "Voters should be looking for school board trustees who have some strong values and strong ideas on how to push back against administration, and how to keep things focused on student and teacher outcomes."To learn more about the consequences of ineffective school board policy, check out the clip below.
