'Schools need to be safe': ATA president concerned about potential pronoun policy impact

Jason Schilling, president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about the upcoming start of another school year.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length

Michael Higgins: Let's start on this issue of a pronoun policy. The premier says there will be lots of time to get it implemented but that won't be before Sept. 1st. Where does that leave the school setting in the interim?

Jason Schilling: We're going to have to see what the legislation actually says and just where it goes in terms of the rules that they want to put into place and the implementation.

But my team, the teachers I represent, are concerned about the safety of all of their students.

Schools need to be safe, caring spaces for every student that goes there.

So we're concerned about what this will have in terms of a chilling effect on our schools.

We have students that are struggling with identity.

Sometimes they come to a teacher as a safe space and say, ‘this is what's going on, I need some help’, and then teachers will work with that student and their families to ensure that they get the support that they need.

So they're worried that this new legislation that comes out could have an impact on that and make that space less safe for those kids and these are our most vulnerable students that we're dealing with.

MH: The premier says there will be robust discussion. Do you see the legislation potentially changing?

JS: We'll have to see what it says when it comes out and just how willing government is to listen to other stakeholders and other partners out there saying, ‘this is too far, this is a sledgehammer approach to a very delicate situation, a nuanced conversation between students and their families’.

We'll have to see how willing government is to listen and from my experience, the government's not always so willing to listen.

MH: The Education Minister is saying that his team has chatted with a multitude of stakeholders including teachers.

How valuable an exercise was that from an educator’s perspective?

JS: We've had a conversation with government as part of their consultation process.

It's whether or not they're willing to take what our concerns are, not only around the safety of our students, but some of the desired implementations that they're putting in place that would affect the administration of schools.

So opting into instruction around sexual and gender identity.

Getting resources approved by government in order to have those in school creates a lot of red tape for schools that are busy enough already under growing class sizes and other pressures, now we're adding this. So whether or not they've actually listened to our concerns, I guess we'll have to see when the legislation comes out.

MH: There’s talk of some potential legal challenges if this goes through. Is that something the ATA would opt in on?

JS: You've seen it happen in other jurisdictions, again, we would just have to wait.

But the association has launched charter challenges in other areas that have affected our members and it's not something that we're afraid of but it's not something that I'm going to just say we're going to do right away without seeing what we have there.

MH: We do know that a cell phone ban takes effect very shortly. We've talked before about ATA’s support of that move so is it smooth sailing?

JS: This policy that is going into place from the municipal order matches our policy we passed in May.

We do have concerns about the mental health impacts of devices, bullying, the distraction that you see in schools.

Our question was more about the implementation, the support for teachers and administrators.

If they have to take those phones away, what policies are in place?

A lot of boards already have policies in place, they've been doing this for a while, but the ministerial order says everything is in effect Sept. 1.

Certain boards don't have to have their policies in place until Jan. 1.

So you have a bit of a gap of time there which my colleagues who are working in those areas are just wondering, what are the rules? What are the procedures? What are the policies?

Same thing for parents and students, they're going to want to know as well, and I think we need time to really explain to people why you're doing it, what the rules are, and then, what's the schedule around that?

There's some fuzziness around that right now.

JS: Parents and students are getting ready for the start of the school year, of course as are teachers.

How ready are Alberta school divisions, especially given the growth in population in our province and how many more kids may be funneling into classrooms?

JS: We saw a huge growth last year and it impacted class sizes, the ability for teachers to meet the needs of their students.

We’ve seen implementation of curriculum that's not well supported to the same cohort of teachers time and time again.

I noted in May that I feel like education is in a crisis right now and I think that will be amplified as we go through this next year.

We're still the least-funded school jurisdiction in all of Canada, and that's harming our students and it's causing teachers to burn out and want to leave the profession.

So I think when parents see their kids go to school this fall they need to know, ‘how did the class size increase? Is there an EA to support my children and other children in the classroom? Are there resources there?’

Because our government needs to start listening to what Albertans are saying about public education and the fact that we need to start funding it better.

We need to start putting more supports in place so that we're ensuring the best for our students.

MH: The province promised a bunch more modulars through the summer months. Do you expect a lot of those will be in place?

JS: I don't know how you announce modulars in the summer and then expect them all to be in place in the fall.

It's yet another sort of band-aid approach to the issues that we keep highlighting in education without actually really addressing the systemic changes that need to happen.

They need to look at the funding formula of how they're funding schools.

They need to look at how they're supporting kids with needs in those schools. But we keep seeing band-aid approaches, distractionary policies in other areas without actually truly addressing the real issues that we see in education right now.

MH: Schools are preparing to resume in Jasper in mid September.

How challenging a dynamic will that be from a teacher's perspective and what kind of supports are the professionals at the front of the classroom going to need?

JS: Teachers will support teachers through this process because we know that it is difficult.

We have lessons that we learned from Slave Lake and from Fort McMurray that can be applied here and we need to make sure that students and staff have support.

They went through something that is extremely traumatizing.

When I talk to my colleagues in Fort McMurray, still the smell of smoke will trigger certain feelings within them.

We need to ensure that they're supported and that those needs are met so that they can learn.

Because if they're feeling anxious and uncertain about things, learning becomes secondary.

We need to make sure that we are there to support them with that and the association will work with the staff who are affected by the fires to make sure that they have their needs met as well.