Hundreds show up for public education rally in Medicine Hat on Wednesday

“It doesn’t surprise me to see a great support showing here, because parents care about public education, teachers care about it, and we’re all seeing the same things in our classrooms,” Schilling said.

“We’re all seeing overcrowded classes, a lack of support and people care about that, and public education means a lot to people.”

Schilling said teachers have been in negotiations with the government for well over a year.

“We’ve been talking about some of the issues that we have in our classrooms, overcrowded classrooms, so class size is one of them, the resources that we need to meet the complex students that we have in our classrooms,” Shilling said.

“Classrooms today are very different than they were 10 years ago, so English language learners, students with special needs, other students who have learning difficulties that don’t have funding attached to them, and we’ve seen an influx of students coming to the province, and we’ve not been funding them,” he added.

“We’re the least funded school jurisdiction in all of Canada. We have been for 10 years, and you’re seeing the results of that right now.”

Teachers are also looking to increase their salaries.

“They’ve only had a 5.75 percent wage increase in the last 10 years. Inflation has been close to 30, so they’ve fallen greatly behind in terms of inflation in their wages,” Schilling said.

“They’re looking to make up for inflation, keep pace with it, but also have a competitive wage that will attract teachers into the profession as well.”

Leah Steiner, a school teacher and counsellor at Medicine Hat High School, said the class size issues are impacting larger centres like Edmonton and Calgary, but are also seen here.

“We currently have a class of 41 students, and so it’s just like too many, it’s just too big,” Steiner said.

“Over my 20 years of being an educator, I’ve seen that complexity change where students really do need some more support for a variety of reasons, whether it be learning needs, social, emotional, mental health, just some of the issues that we’re dealing with in society in general,” she added.

“It spills into schools as well, and we just need more resources for that.”

Steiner was also happy with the support shown at the rally.

“The best feeling you could possibly have is to see so many people supporting public education. All of these people that are here are taxpayers. They are giving so much to a public education system that the government is not giving it to us in return, and that just doesn’t seem fair,” Steiner said.

“I’ve seen so many people here, and honestly, that support just means the absolute world,” she added.

“I love being a teacher. I love my job. I really do. I think that people need to go into education. We need more teachers. We want to hire more teachers.”

As Alberta teachers enter day four of the strike on Thursday, they are set to be locked out in the afternoon.

Labour relations professor Jason Foster of Athabasca University said it effectively stops teachers from changing how they strike, taking options like rotating job action off the table.

Foster called the move “unusual,” saying it’s unclear why the group in charge of bargaining for the province didn’t align its lockout notice with the strike deadline.

He adds that school boards now have the option to start laying off workers such as educational assistants and custodians, who have been working since Monday’s strike began.

About 51,000 teachers are off the job in what’s considered the largest walkout in Alberta’s history.

– With files for The Canadian Press

by Jett Schwaier / with files from Canadian Press

Hundreds show up for public education rally in Medicine Hat on Wednesday

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