The strike by Alberta’s 51,000 teachers is into its second week and parents across the province are struggling to find ways to keep their children busy and prevent them from falling behind in their education.
As negotiators for the teachers and the government returned to the bargaining table on Tuesday, the province’s United Conservative Party government also began offering parents cash payouts, meant to help them with the financial impact of the strike.
Despite some occasional hiccups, the provincial portal, where parents can apply for the payments has begun accepting applications.
Parents, with children age 12 and under are eligible to receive $30 per day, per child, for each day of the strike.
The province says payments will be retroactive to Oct. 6 and will be delivered monthly by e-transfer starting on Oct. 31.
Eligible parents of children with disabilities will be paid between $30 and $60 per day.
Christy Belmont, a parent of three young children, with just one of school age, a son in grade two, said it has been a struggle to keep them busy during the strike.
“There’s a few local places that have a few camps and we’ve just put him in there a few days just to keep him busy,” said Belmont.
Belmont plans to apply for the payments, but said the extra money won’t cover all the extra costs she’s facing during the strike.
“Honestly, I’d probably rather it go towards education in general,” said Belmont. “But I mean we’ll take it if it’s available.”
Sheridan Aleck also has three young children, with just one — her five-year-old son — in school.
Get daily National news
Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
“It’s been really hard, especially for kindergarten. He’s new into the school, and so we just spent the whole month getting to know the routines and getting used to going and the environment, so to pull them out so quick, it has been quite disruptive to life,” said Aleck.
However, she has no plans to apply for the government payouts.
“I really honestly think if the government is offering that to everybody, they should just be paying our teachers. The money should just go to them,” said Aleck.
Sheridan Aleck says she’d rather the $30 per day the province is offering parents go instead to teachers and to help reduce the size of school classes.
Global News
“We need we need our teachers back in the classroom. We need them with better (student) ratios. We meet them with supports, we need them with better pay because they’re a valuable pillar of our society,” said Aleck.
“How can we how can we expect our kids, the next generation growing up, to be successful and to contribute to the world if they aren’t getting the proper education,” added Aleck.
Even with the extra money available, child-care advocates say there is little many of them can do to help parents.
Krystal Churcher, who is chair of the Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs, tells Global News that there are different licensing requirements for preschool and out-of-school care providers.
“If you’re in a daycare, a preschool licence, not an out-of-school care (provider), you can’t take school-age children,” said Churcher.
“You can’t just go ahead and start changing the age group of your programs, or what your ratios are, or what your program covers. Those are all things that have to be approved by the department, by licensing, well ahead of time.”
“I think it’s really shown what kind of a gap (there is) in communication between the ministry and the frontline sector, and that lack of understanding of really what role child care can even play during a strike, because it isn’t just as easy as showing up at a daycare with your school-aged child and dropping them off,” added Churcher.
Child-care advocate Krystal Churcher says most Alberta daycares operate under a completely different set of rules and licensing than after-school care providers, so there’s not much help they can provide to parents during the teachers strike.
Global News
She also finds it offensive that the provincial government is offering parents $30 per day to help with child care when, under the federal-provincial child-care agreement, most daycare operators are paid just $15 per day per child.
“I think we need to start asking parents to really evaluate what they’re expecting from child care, what price tag they’re putting on child care if you’re getting $30 a day. And you’re getting full-time daycare for $15 a day, maybe it’s time we start having conversations around the value of care for our children across the whole board, school and child care too,” said Churcher.
“This is a huge mess, a huge mess for families and for children and teachers,” added Churcher.
But she also makes a plea to parents to please try not to take out that frustration on frontline child care operators.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
