A walk through the schools of Alberta at lunchtime will probably not bring any laughing students, as the teacher of teachers falls on the second day.
While staff parking is certainly not as full as just a week ago, with classes in a session, they are not completely empty.
In these halls, some work continues – with a cloud of uncertainty hanging over all this.
“The support that we provide to students, but also teachers and directors, is huge,” explains Tammy Earl, chairman of the Council of Education Council Association.
The association presents about 5,000 members from roles such as an assistant by education, administrative staff, supervisors for the dining room, IT specialists, psychologists and dozens of other names of the work.
Earl says that they all continue to work at work this week. While there are no students filling classrooms, libraries and lunches, there are still a lot of work.
“Many of them use this time to update their skills and qualifications and conduct some professional development,” Earl said.
“CBE has provided a list of proposed learning to support – certification of brain history, mental learning, first aid topics. There is a wide range of things, depending on what is the name of the work. ”
Earl believes that at the beginning of the destruction there is enough work.
But she also recognizes the uncertainty of the situation, without permission on the horizon.
“These issues have been emerging in June,” said Earl. ““ Will we be fired? “Honestly, we do not know.”

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The statement for Global News The Calgary Education Council says: “All employees who are not ATA will continue to report work in accordance with the schedule. We talked with school employees about their duties during the strike. ”
Meanwhile, the Catholic school district of the Calgary says that schools and jobs remain open to their auxiliary staff, but adds that “it will be reassessed weekly.”
This is not quite a matter, as usual for workers, landscape and mechanics, but the Canadian Union of civil servants (CUPE) 40.
“Since we have been comprehensible for so long, this gives them the opportunity to catch up with a lot of seasonal cleaning, maintenance, similar things that were postponed for critical cleaning in the past,” explained Clay Gordon, President of Cup Local 40.
Gordon says that the work, as a rule, is reserved during the summer months, and the only chance to get in the school year during the days of professional development.
“Now they have (time) to make some deeper cleaning and catch up with some of these annual tasks,” said Gordon. “It is very important that some of these issues are resolved, which can be in the air when entering the ventilation systems.”
The workers of the guardians had their own labor dispute Only in the last academic year, having involved both teachers and students trying to manage training without this critical support.
“I know that many parents were worried about what was happening,” said Gordon. “This was really explained about how important the work that our participants do in order to maintain its safe and safe educational environment.”
The representative of Cupe Alberta, Lou Arab, says that the trade union supports teachers during destruction and will do everything possible so that the labor dispute does not last longer than it is necessary.
“We definitely ask our members not to do the work of teachers,” Arab said. “If they are asked and contacting their working stewards, if they are asked about it or ask them to do their work, it falls in the gray area.”
Arab, Gordon and Earl, everyone says that the passion for education among support workers is a synonym for the feelings of Alberta teachers.
“These are people who love the children they teach, consider them their children, and they love the work that they do,” Arab said.
“Last year, I studied at a secondary school in a mental health lesson, and I think about these students every morning, Earl explained.
“I could say“ welcome to school ”before, and I am interested in who is now welcoming them at school.”

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