Lloydminster teachers join with Saskatchewan colleagues on one day strike

“Teachers are taking a stand against a government that has underfunded the education system for more than a decade,” says Derek Armstrong, president of the Lloydminster Teachers’ Association as he joined hundreds of local teachers on a one-day strike.

Lloydminster teachers along with their counterparts across Saskatchewan are striking on Tuesday as talks for a new collective bargaining agreement have stalled since last summer.

The Saskatchewan government is offering teachers seven per cent over three years, but the Saskatchewan Teachers Federation (STF) says it will only come back to the bargaining table if the government commits to discussions on classroom size and complexity.

Armstrong says teachers definitely deserve increases, however, no one joined the profession thinking they were going to line their pockets. While they do need to keep up with the rate of inflation, he says, “That’s not a priority item, our main concern is the lack of support for students.”

Under complexity, Armstrong listed things like students coming to school hungry, and students in need of extra supports that go beyond academics. He said teachers are not psychiatrists.

“We need the supports in the schools and outside the schools to properly support the whole child,” says Armstrong.

On the issue of whether teachers have experienced physical abuse in classrooms, the local union representative says, “I wouldn’t say that every teacher is experiencing it all the time, but we are seeing an increase in violent behaviours in the classroom, and we are tasked with dealing with behaviours before we are able to deal with the academics.”

The STF cites government data like there’s one psychologist per 2,822 students, one social worker per 2,900 students, and an 11.5 per cent increase in the student-to-full-time teacher ratio from 2013-14 to 2022-23.

On the matter of class size, Armstrong feels that 20-25 students would be sufficient, but 30 is too much.

According to government stats, the total number of students in Saskatchewan grew from 170,582 to 193,550, between 2013-14 to 2023-24. That’s an increase of 25,000 students or 14.7 percent. Meanwhile, the number of full-time teachers decreased from 12,276 in 2021-22 to 12,131 in 2022-23, a decline of 145 educators.

The teachers marched from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in rotating shifts along Highway 16 from the Border Inn to City Hall in Lloydminster.