Back in session: Alberta teachers ordered back to work for Wednesday

Originally published on Oct 28, 2025 at 11:07

By Kaiden Brayshaw, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

After missing 17 days of school, Calgary students are set to return to classes later this week, with the provincial government ordering the teachers back to work.

After resuming legislation last Thursday, the Alberta government will legislate Bill 2: Back to School Act, ending both the nearly 18-month bargaining process with the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA), and the association’s three-and-a-half-week strike.

Calgary Board of Education (CBE) and Calgary Catholic School District (CCSD) students will join students province-wide in returning to the classroom on Wednesday, Oct. 29.

On their labour action webpage, the CCSD says they will continue to monitor developments and keep families informed through email and website updates as further information becomes available.

Similarly, the CBE said on its labour action webpage that they are awaiting the outcome of the upcoming legislation or an agreement between the ATA and TEBA.

The back-to-work order invokes a notwithstanding clause and reflects terms included in a previously proposed deal from September, which was rejected by more than 90 per cent of voting teachers.

The settlement includes a 12 per cent salary increase over four years, an additional market adjustment that improves the pay of 95 per cent of teachers up to 17 per cent, and funds the hiring of 3,000 new teachers, above the hiring needed to replace retiring teachers.

No formal local bargaining will occur during the life of this agreement, the legislation notes. Through the Alberta Labor Relations Board, illegal striking will result in penalties of up to $500 a day for individuals participating and up to $500,000 a day for organizations.

The settlement will retroactively run from Sept. 1, 2024 until Aug. 31, 2028.

Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said that when schools reopen, it will be a fresh start for students, teachers and families whose routines have all been unexpectedly impacted.

“School is more than just a building, it’s a place where children learn, grow and feel safe. When that’s taken away, it affects everyone,” he said.

“Our goal is simple, to help students feel supported and help teachers feel safe and ready.”

ATA President Jason Schilling said that teachers are still hoping to fix what’s broken, but government has chosen confrontation over cooperation.

“The choice the government has made is completely unnecessary. It’s also undemocratic and will set an extremely dangerous precedent. By choosing to end this legal labour action through legislation, the government is abdicating its duty to address the real issues that teachers—and thousands of Albertans—have raised throughout this strike and in the months leading up to it,” Schilling said in a statement.

Ending negotiations does not silence teachers’ needs: Smith

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said the end of the strike does not bring an end to the teachers’ concerns raised through the bargaining process. Instead, the province will be addressing those concerns head-on.

Alberta Education will immediately begin collecting and publicly reporting on class size and composition, but Smith said that data alone is not enough.

“We will be immediately forming a class size and complexity task force, and we are sincerely hoping that the teachers and the education assistants will also play a very large role in this,” she said.

The task force will chart a path in three key areas, the first of which first, will reflect the data collected to assign additional funding to support new teachers and new education assistants before the end of November.

Smith said that $100 million annually for the next three years will be used to hire more education assistants and an investment of some $8.6 billion to build 130 new and modernized schools province-wide, on top of the teacher hiring commitments. 

“Together, these investments will make a significant difference in reducing class sizes,” she said.

Second, in response to concerns about classroom complexity, an action team comprised of trustees, school division administrators, teachers and educational assistants began looking at how to reduce disruptions in the classroom and how to strengthen support for students and educators last June. 

Smith said this team’s report will be released in November and the Ministry of Education and Childcare will immediately begin implementing the recommendations. 

Lastly, the province will work with education stakeholders, including school boards and teachers, education assistants and parents, and will be replacing the 20-year-old standards for special education with a new inclusive education policy framework, according to Smith.

“These commitments to improving the education system are immediate, wide-ranging, and tangible, and they help to address many of the challenges that teachers face on a daily basis,” she said.

Fair bargaining measures were respected: Province

President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Finance Nate Horner said that government, through the Teachers’ Employer Bargaining Association (TEBA), made every effort to reach a fair and responsible settlement before using the back-to-work order as a last resort.

“Negotiations with the union have gone on for 18 months; unfortunately, students have been the ones paying the price for the ATA strike. Immediate action is now required to protect them and restore stability to Alberta’s education system,” he said.

TEBA was prepared to agree to the mediator-recommended deal from March 2025 and was also prepared to accept the September 2025 Memorandum of Agreement, which was based on an earlier ATA proposal, but both deals were rejected by ATA members.

“The ATA latest offer went too far,” Horner said.

“It would have imposed rigid classroom size and complexity limits that strip school boards of the ability to manage their schools effectively, and worse, it would have nearly doubled the total cost of the September agreement, adding an additional $2 billion obligation for Alberta taxpayers.”

Despite a government letter offering enhanced mediation to end the strike, the ATA refused to return to the table and stood by their impossible, inflexible offer, according to Horner.

UCP rushing an anti-democratic solution: Opposition party

Naheed Nenshi, Leader of the Official Opposition of Alberta, said that government tabling and passing Bill 2 in a single day will force teachers back to work without addressing concerns meaningfully.

“The UCP has also floated they may use the notwithstanding clause as part of their efforts to ram this bill through. This would be an alarming first in Alberta’s history. It would mean the UCP is willing to intentionally and unjustifiably violate the Charter-protected rights and freedoms of teachers, workers and their unions—and all Albertans,” he said in a statement. 

“What this government should be doing is getting back to the bargaining table with a fair offer that ends the strike properly. Teachers should never have had to risk their own livelihoods just to stand up for themselves and their students.”  

The government has officially used a notwithstanding clause with Alberta’s teachers.

“Alberta’s New Democrats are calling on Danielle Smith and her government to call off this back-to-work legislation, to denounce any potential use of the notwithstanding clause, and to actually do the hard work they should have been doing months ago to make classrooms better for teachers and students,” Nenshi’s statement reads.

“As I take my seat in Question Period for the first time today, I will be fighting for teachers and students and standing up public education.”