FAQ Group: Alberta Union of Provincial Employees Survey

With the negligent provincial response to now three preventable waves of COVID-19, school boards have been put in an awkward position of needing to take measure to protect their students and staff throughout the pandemic. Many are introducing measures of their own, but not all have. Do you support measures such as mask mandates, and vaccine mandates for staff to limit and reduce the spread of COVID-19 in your schools?

October 5, 2021 locke.spencer@gmail.com

I fully support mask mandates within schools to limit and reduce the spread of COVID-19 in schools. This is not a difficult ask, and it helps to prevent much more serious consequences. We do not fully understand all the risks of COVID-19 in children, especially higher risk groups such as immunocompromised individuals. Masking helps to…

Will you oppose attempts from the provincial government to legislate against school staff including cuts to the Local Authorities Pension Plan, or restrictions on their right to strike?

October 2, 2021 locke.spencer@gmail.com

Yes I will oppose legislation against staff, cuts to pensions, and restrictions to strike. I was incredibly disappointed by the motion of the province to take over the teachers pension fund (and note that a better agreement has been reached a few weeks ago, but still not as good as it was before the interference)….

As our economies recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, good jobs are an important factor. Public sector workers spend in their communities, and many households impacted by private sector recessions have been able to keep the bills paid thanks to a stable public sector job. 4. Will you support your employees and your community by ensuring the school board employs staff with living wages, full-time hours where desired, job security, and collective bargaining rights?

October 2, 2021 locke.spencer@gmail.com

Yes. I support living wages, all staff having the option for full-time employment where desired, job security, and collective bargaining rights. If we cannot provide these then we cannot provide a sustainable system. I serve as the chief negotiator for the U of L faculty association where we are currently in collective bargaining, and I…

AUPE members know very well that privatization regularly fails to find “efficiencies” and any cost savings are often off the backs of workers who become de-unionized, with lower pay and benefits. They also work on the front lines of service delivery and see the problems caused by high-turnover low wage private providers, and the bureaucratic burden caused by having to deal with a third party instead of an in-house provider. Will you oppose privatization of school services and infrastructure, including Public-Private-Partnerships aka P3s? Will you support bringing previously privatized services in-house?

October 2, 2021 locke.spencer@gmail.com

I will oppose privatization of services and infrastructure, including P3s. I will support the deprivatization of previously privatized services. In my view P3s are an accounting trick for governments to take on more debt without it showing up that way in the financial records. I expect that this ends up costing more than traditional financing…

Alberta continues to be a growing province, with more students entering the system. While we’re told funding is tight for public education, Alberta continues to subsidize private education with millions in public dollars. Do you believe the current education funding formula is sufficient for your district? If not, how will you work to convince the province to provide sustainable and adequate funding?

October 2, 2021 locke.spencer@gmail.com

No, I do not believe that the current funding formula is sufficient for my district. The current education funding program in Alberta, first implemented in Fall 2020, prioritizes predictable funding over sufficient funding with a 3-year rolling weighted enrollment average used to establish funding levels. As Lethbridge is seeing high growth, the funding model actually…

Curriculum experts, educators, parents, and many of the current school boards have pointed out the flaws in the draft k-6 curriculum. Do you agree with calls to scrap the draft curriculum and start over to develop a curriculum that is accurate in capturing Alberta’s colonial history, diverse present, and modernized to reflect the world we live in?

October 2, 2021 locke.spencer@gmail.com

Yes, I agree with the calls to redo the curriculum. I do not support the new curriculum; it did not have nearly enough broad and public consultation to justify its adoption. There were many problems identified by many stakeholders across a broad range of subjects. The vast majority of school divisions rejecting the opportunity to…