Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[wireframe]

Originally Posted by you&me

A story about the TDSB popped up on my Apple News... Interestingly, it mentions something about the average class size in grades 4-8 is 24.1 students, vs. the provincial benchmark of 24.5.

I had no idea what class size targets were in other jurisdictions, but that seems lower than I expected and much lower than what seems to be the norm in Calgary.

What is that benchmark? The UCP government stopped class size reporting after 2019 (https://open.alberta.ca/opendata/cla...-grade-alberta). Anecdotally, class then exploded due to government underfunding and population growth.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

The latest offer by the province looks pretty reasonable to me. It basically meets the ATA ask on teacher staffing and provides reasonable pay relative to competitors. It gives teachers inflation + 1% each year in pay increases which is in line with how pay should be expected to evolve from a reasonable starting base.

If teachers say no to this offer, the province is in a very good position to take teachers to binding arbitration and have this offer imposed. I'm assuming teachers will say no and they might get one final offer next weekend that will be a bit better than this one. But I can't imagine a strike going well for teachers

It doesn’t come close to meeting class size requirements and has no mechanisms to guarantee class sizes remain below a certain amount or that EAs are reasonably distributed. It fails miserably on working conditions. 3000 teachers over 4 years is not meaningful. If you take 1.5% population growth that accounts for 60% of the positions leaving just a 4% reduction in class size or in a class of 30 1 student. We are saved!!!!

Do you have school aged kids right now? My conversations with parents have been unanimously in support of teachers striking. Including people saying I like Danielle Smith but…….

[you&me]

Originally Posted by wireframe

What is that benchmark? The UCP government stopped class size reporting after 2019 (https://open.alberta.ca/opendata/cla...-grade-alberta). Anecdotally, class then exploded due to government underfunding and population growth.

I don't really care enough to look into beyond the statistic, but I'd assume the benchmark is a target set by the ON government tied to funding, or... ?

Anecdotally, it seems like class sizes in AB have commonly been higher than the ON benchmark for decades.

[Mr.Coffee]

Talked to a guy very in the know on the negotiation and pretty dialed into the details.

Last offer the province just gave, that teachers are about to vote on, is essentially the exact same from an overall value standpoint as their last offer. Just was basically shuffling the deck chairs.

It’ll be rejected.

[Ashartus]

The teachers I've talked to are pretty pissed. Even ones that voted in favour last spring are saying they are voting no this time. I've heard several say despite being unhappy on the salary side that there was no recognition of them having negligible salary increases over the past 10 years, they would vote yes if the government added a class size cap. But the UCP is not willing to do that.

[Harry Lime]

The UCP are committed to building schools, a core promise of their last election campaign.

It is very disingenuous to link the staffing of those schools to the CBA. They are insinuating that if the teachers don't take the current offer, those shiny new schools will remain closed and unstaffed.

The building and staffing of those schools are a campaign promise and have absolutely nothing to do with the CBA.

[calf]

Originally Posted by you&me

A story about the TDSB popped up on my Apple News... Interestingly, it mentions something about the average class size in grades 4-8 is 24.1 students, vs. the provincial benchmark of 24.5.



I had no idea what class size targets were in other jurisdictions, but that seems lower than I expected and much lower than what seems to be the norm in Calgary.

Average isn't the best metric - I hate when news stories quote averages. Median, or even a regional average is more relevant. If a class in Calgary has 35 students but a class of the same grade in Crossfield is 15, your average is 25, but that's not really helpful to the Calgary classroom..

[Ashartus]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

The UCP are committed to building schools, a core promise of their last election campaign.

It is very disingenuous to link the staffing of those schools to the CBA. They are insinuating that if the teachers don't take the current offer, those shiny new schools will remain closed and unstaffed.

The building and staffing of those schools are a campaign promise and have absolutely nothing to do with the CBA.

The 3000/year teacher promise is not actually built into the CBA either, it is a side promise which the government is not actually bound by.

[malcolmk14]

Originally Posted by Ashartus

The 3000/year teacher promise is not actually built into the CBA either, it is a side promise which the government is not actually bound by.

Incorrect

[getbak]

Originally Posted by calf

Average isn't the best metric - I hate when news stories quote averages. Median, or even a regional average is more relevant. If a class in Calgary has 35 students but a class of the same grade in Crossfield is 15, your average is 25, but that's not really helpful to the Calgary classroom..

This raises a question I've had through this process... Does anyone know when the ATA started negotiating as a single unit province-wide? I always remember it being something that happened on a board-by-board basis.

For example, when I was in Grade 1, the CBE teachers went on strike and a few kids in my class switched to Catholic school because they were still open.


For those who are (or know) teachers, is this preferred to having each board negotiate their own deals? I know there's strength in numbers and having every school in the province shut down is a good way to get attention, but on the other side, smaller rural locals may have different issues than big city schools, and having one bargaining unit can ignore the smaller concerns.

[malcolmk14]

Originally Posted by getbak

This raises a question I've had through this process... Does anyone know when the ATA started negotiating as a single unit province-wide? I always remember it being something that happened on a board-by-board basis.

For example, when I was in Grade 1, the CBE teachers went on strike and a few kids in my class switched to Catholic school because they were still open.


For those who are (or know) teachers, is this preferred to having each board negotiate their own deals? I know there's strength in numbers and having every school in the province shut down is a good way to get attention, but on the other side, smaller rural locals may have different issues than big city schools, and having one bargaining unit can ignore the smaller concerns.

Started in 2016 I believe. Could've been before that but I started teaching in 2014.

There is central bargaining (province-wide) which deals with large items like salary, benefits, assignable & instructional time, etc., and local bargaining which deals with smaller and more locally important concerns.

[CFO]

Is this true? I was told recently that teachers are wanting 90 sick days to be immediately when starting? When googling this comes up?

Alberta teachers receive a statutory sick leave of 20 paid days in their first year and typically up to 90 paid sick days for subsequent years, as per the Alberta Education Act and their collective agreements.

This can't be right they get up to 90 sick days? Wtf. Got to be an error?

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by CFO

Is this true? I was told recently that teachers are wanting 90 sick days to be immediately when starting? When googling this comes up?

Alberta teachers receive a statutory sick leave of 20 paid days in their first year and typically up to 90 paid sick days for subsequent years, as per the Alberta Education Act and their collective agreements.

This can't be right they get up to 90 sick days? Wtf. Got to be an error?

I got 119 days with one job I used to have

[WinnipegFan]

Originally Posted by CFO

Is this true? I was told recently that teachers are wanting 90 sick days to be immediately when starting? When googling this comes up?

Alberta teachers receive a statutory sick leave of 20 paid days in their first year and typically up to 90 paid sick days for subsequent years, as per the Alberta Education Act and their collective agreements.

This can't be right they get up to 90 sick days? Wtf. Got to be an error?

It isn't an error, but it is a number that captures the short term disability alotment. A teacher can be on paid short term disability for 90 days. However, there have been plenty of stories of individuals that abuse this system, but the CBE has worked to remove these people with a simply payout. But ya the 90 sick days is ridiculous, and there are plenty of people that abuse it to a small degree. Whether it be generating themselves a 4 day work week, to those that know once you take the 90 short term you have to work one day and it resets back to 90. So ya, there are "90 and 1 'ers" as we called them and basically every school I worked at in Calgary had one or two of them.

[malcolmk14]

Originally Posted by CFO

Is this true? I was told recently that teachers are wanting 90 sick days to be immediately when starting? When googling this comes up?

Alberta teachers receive a statutory sick leave of 20 paid days in their first year and typically up to 90 paid sick days for subsequent years, as per the Alberta Education Act and their collective agreements.

This can't be right they get up to 90 sick days? Wtf. Got to be an error?

Yes - sick leave turns into short term disability on day 5 of a medical absence, and long term disability if it goes beyond 90 calendar days. My wife in an engineering role at a Calgary company has the same short term disability - surely it’s not that unbelievable.

[malcolmk14]

Originally Posted by WinnipegFan

It isn't an error, but it is a number that captures the short term disability alotment. A teacher can be on paid short term disability for 90 days. However, there have been plenty of stories of individuals that abuse this system, but the CBE has worked to remove these people with a simply payout. But ya the 90 sick days is ridiculous, and there are plenty of people that abuse it to a small degree. Whether it be generating themselves a 4 day work week, to those that know once you take the 90 short term you have to work one day and it resets back to 90. So ya, there are "90 and 1 'ers" as we called them and basically every school I worked at in Calgary had one or two of them.

Interesting - I’ve worked at a few schools and never encountered a person doing that. When I took short-term disability a few years ago for a chronic pain episode I was dealing with, I went back for 2 days and then was off again, and my 90 days never reset because it was the same medical condition.

[woob]

I think Mr CFO is thinking along the lines of a teacher being able to call in sick 90 times, and not in the realm of STD.

I've used STD at my work for medical recovery, and its not just a simple call in like you're sick. I was appointed an advisor or whatever they call it who was essentially the middle person between the company I work for and myself.

[PepsiFree]

I work in the private sector and have unlimited paid sick days.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

Yes - sick leave turns into short term disability on day 5 of a medical absence, and long term disability if it goes beyond 90 calendar days. My wife in an engineering role at a Calgary company has the same short term disability - surely it’s not that unbelievable.

It’s common in quite a few industries where the employer doesn’t want to offer short term disability. Generally the employees still have to accrue the days though, so they don’t just magically get 90 days of sick pay. It’s usually something along the lines of accruing 1 day/month worked that is put into their sick time bank. Not sure how it works or would work for teachers.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I work in the private sector and have unlimited paid sick days.

I worked in the private sector but don’t know what the limits were because people rarely took them. I think more people should take mental health days and be able to stay home for more minor illness guilt free but I’m not a fan of treating like an entitlement that you always use up or even bank. If that’s the case call it vacation.