A very warm welcome back to everyone! On behalf of the Edmonton Catholic Teachers’ Local 54 of the Alberta Teachers Association, it is my hope that you had a summer filled with warmth, surrounded by those that you love while doing all those “things” that fill you up in the best way possible. Where the rain may have “dampened” a few of our outdoor events, it can also bring with you a certain calm, a warm blanket, a sparking fire and, hopefully, the comfort of those that put you at your best!
The 2019 – 2020 school year will be filled with great joy, as it always is. Successes and triumphs in our classrooms, milestones met by our students, and those REALLY great days where you are sure that you have chosen the right profession, the BEST way to spend your days and the most valuable way to give of yourself. This is, in fact, why we all teach; to give of yourself and share the exhilaration of learning with our students. This school year will also surely be affected by the political atmosphere in Alberta. At the Local, we look forward to a few “flag ship” events in the coming days; The School Opening Mass, The Associations’ Beginning Teachers’ and Substitute Teachers Conference, The New Teacher Induction and more! We hope that you are able to attend these events as it suits your practice. In addition, we welcome the second year of access to the Teacher Professional Growth Fund. Visit the Local’s website to learn how to access $650 in self directed Professional Growth Funds.
Together, we will continue to celebrate our profession, publicly funded Catholic education but, it is no secret that there are many questions surrounding the stability of funding for our schools, our wage arbitration process and how teachers will be affected by the impending provincial budget that will be announced on October 22 by our government. Many feel that this could be a very troublesome time for Alberta teachers, students and school boards. With this, it is time for teachers to use their voice to share the concerns that they have. To shed even more light to how a threat to our funding will affect us each day through larger class sizes, less support for diversity in our classrooms and an overall negative impact on our students and how they learn. How the dismissal from the “table” of curricular writing and review (by the tearing up of the Memorandum of Understanding settled with the past government) puts a full stop on the integrity of the professional expertise that teachers have on teaching and pedagogy. And how a decrease or “stay” to our wages is very simply, a complete disrespect to the role that we play in our community and province each day.
In the coming days, you will hear a lot of information on how you could approach this situation. Most immediately will be a letter writing campaign brought to us by the Provincial Association. This will come to you from your School Council Representative following our September meeting. I strongly encourage you to take part in this campaign. Further, the Local will be profiling teachers in our schools by highlighting the next generation of our Feature Teachers. This year, the Local will be profiling its teachers and the key roles that they play in our community; stay tuned to our Social Media for more information on this. As always, please consider visiting your MLA and discussing your concerns about how the education system could be affected by underfunding and a disrespect to the profession. Last and maybe most importantly, support each other. This is a time of questioning, concern and uncertainty for teachers and everyone in our schools. We should all keep in mind that when our first work is to be teaching, a climate such as this will call for the most genuine kind of support that can be offered.
I look forward to seeing you at a Council meeting, a Local event, or at a visit to your school. Your work matters and, we, at the Local know and understand this.
Wishing you all a smooth start up and warm wishes for a gentle, calm and successful year in your schools.
Be
well,
Sandra