Looming Alberta teachers’ strike puts spotlight on overcrowded schools

Skyelar Schmidt and her mother Kira Schulz, right, are shown in this handout photo taken in Airdrie, Alta. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout - Jana Miko (Mandatory Credit)

EDMONTON — As the clock ticks toward a potential provincewide strike by Alberta’s teachers, parents say classroom overcrowding is having a disastrous domino effect on learning with tutors being hired to fill in the gaps.

Kira Schulz says she hired a tutor for her 10-year-old daughter, Skyelar Schmidt, to prevent her from falling behind while trying to tune into teachers over the din of her peers jammed in classrooms.

“It’s really tough to see,” Schulz said from her home in Airdrie, a bedroom community of Calgary.

As a school volunteer, Schulz said she has seen students working in hallways become the new norm and that noise and crowded spaces are causing more outbursts.

“I remember when I was in school, you had space to walk. They weren’t shoulder to shoulder with people,” she said.

Skyelar said sometimes all she hears in class is the sound of students talking over one another. While there are nearly 30 children in most of her classes, she runs around with 54 in gym.

“It’s super loud,” said the Grade 5 student.

In nearby Calgary, Jacqueline Renfrow said she has also hired tutors for her daughters, because they’re falling behind in overcrowded classes.

“There’s just no way for especially the kids coming out of COVID to get the attention that they need,” Renfrow said.

“Now we have to fork out even more on top of the taxes that I already pay (for) education.”

She said her daughters, ages nine and 11, have also lost their art and music rooms due to large class sizes.

“It completely changes the learning experience,” Renfrow said.

“You’re trying to keep kids from painting their desks and painting their shoes. It can be utter chaos not having those dedicated spaces.”

Students, parents, school boards and the province said they want to fix overcrowding, as the province’s population hits five million.

But they can’t agree on how to do it.

Premier Danielle Smith’s government and the Alberta Teachers’ Association, the bargaining agent for 51,000 educators across 2,500 schools, have broken off contract talks, with teachers setting a strike date of Oct. 6 if no deal is made by then.

Teachers want a salary raise along with more supports to fix crowded classrooms.

“Go to the whole corridor between Edmonton and Calgary, Lethbridge, Grand Prairie, Fort McMurray, go to any large urban centre, you will see classes that are overcrowded,” union president Jason Schilling told a news conference Monday.

“You will see schools that are using their gym stages as classrooms. You’ll see schools convert their libraries into classrooms.”

Edmonton Public Schools said in an email 90 per cent of all its school spaces will be full this year and it expects to reach capacity in the 2028 school year. Edmonton Catholic Schools said nearly half its school buildings — 44 out of 93 — are full or over capacity.

The Calgary Board of Education said its website notes several schools that have paused enrolment because they’re overflowing.

The premier has said she’s hopeful a deal will be reached before Oct. 6. Her United Conservative Party government last offered to hire 3,000 teachers over three years to address class sizes as well as a 12 per cent wage increase for teachers over four years.

Smith said the province is poised to run a $6.5-billion deficit this budget year but has promised to invest $8.6 billion over seven years to accelerate new school builds.

She said the union has to make a stark choice between heftier pay hikes and more teachers, because there’s no more money to add and they can’t have both.

Schilling said the union has proposed a counter-offer and Smith is presenting a false choice.

He said teachers have only seen a 5.75 per cent salary increase over the last decade and that the last government wage offer didn’t keep up with inflation. He also said Alberta is among the lowest per-student funders in the country and must do better.

Negotiations were further crippled this week when the province complained about the union to the Alberta Labour Relations Board.

The province said Schilling’s association is bargaining in bad faith by falsely telling its rank and file that the province’s bargaining agent, the Teachers’ Employer Bargaining Association, is not allowed to negotiate non-wage issues.

The province said it’s not the case and has asked the labour board to force teachers to retract the statement. Schilling pushed back Monday, saying the statement’s true, because it’s what they were told by the other side at the negotiating table.

Schilling also said while it considers the complaint frivolous, it does have the potential to derail a solution.

“The government sort of indicated that they don’t want to negotiate further until the complaint has been resolved,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2025.

Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press