News

The start of a new school year is an exciting time. For superannuates, it signals the planning of the annual To Hell With the Bells breakfast which most chapters celebrate as a social time and also to recognize those superannuates who graduated to our ranks this past year.

As public education continues to change and evolve every year, there are all sorts of examples of how the theme of this year’s Education Week, Working and Learning Together, resonates with communities throughout the province.

There are a multitude of ways in which schools in urban centres have incorporated available resources–ones which might not have been considered in the traditional model. This trend is arguably even more apparent in some of the rural settings where it is still very true that the school is the hub of the community.

Reading the recently released report, Alberta School Leadership Within the Teaching Profession 2019: Seismic Shifts and Fault Lines: Experiencing the Highs, Lows and Shadows, worked to confirm my hopes and my fears for principals as instructional leaders in schools today. The research, sponsored by the Alberta Teachers’ Association and conducted by researchers from the University of Alberta, shares findings from a 2019 study of school leaders across publicly funded schools in Alberta.

The Teachers’ Bargaining Committee has put their money where their mouth is in the latest development of the current bargaining negotiations aimed at securing a new collective agreement for the province’s 13,000 teachers.

The TBC informed the Government-Trustee Bargaining Committee that in seeking to find solutions to the challenges of complex classrooms, they would be willing to consider a one-time contribution of $21 million in health plan contributions from the government. This is on the condition that the contribution would be matched by government.

The Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation is encouraged by the Minister’s willingness to address classroom size and composition. However, the suggestion of a provincial team to address the issue is lacking specifics on how the team would function, its mandate and how it would be held accountable to deliver real impact inside the province’s schools.