October 16, 2025
Satinder Sukraat
Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) president Jason Schilling joined RED FM’s Morning Show on Thursday to discuss the ongoing teachers’ strike and the status of negotiations with the provincial government.
Schilling confirmed that informal talks resumed on Tuesday, with the ATA submitting two new proposals aimed at resolving the impasse. “They’re taking time to look at those proposals to see if they can agree to them or how that would look, and hopefully we’ll be back to having discussions later this week,” he said.
The government has also suggested it may consider back-to-work legislation if a deal is not reached soon. “They’ve always had the ability to legislate us back to work, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they do that,” Schilling noted. “It would be an unfortunate way to come to a conclusion, but a negotiated settlement would be preferred.”
One of the ATA’s latest proposals includes factoring classroom complexity into the student-teacher ratio, recognizing the additional challenges teachers face with students who have special needs or English as a second language. “We want to address both the class size and the complexity issues teachers are seeing, as well as a salary ask,” Schilling explained.
Responding to government statistics that claim Alberta has 51,000 teachers and 750,000 students, Schilling said those numbers don’t reflect the reality in classrooms. He pointed out that the total includes substitute teachers, associate members, and educators on leave, which skews the ratio. “It makes it sound easy, but they’re not taking into account population density,” he said, noting that many Calgary and Edmonton schools remain over capacity.
Negotiations are expected to continue later this week, as Alberta teachers maintain their call for smaller class sizes, fair compensation, and better classroom conditions.
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