Students walk out
By Lethbridge Herald on October 30, 2025.
HERALD PHOTO BY JOE MANIO
Lethbridge Collegiate Institute (LCI) students gather across the street at the First Baptist Church after walking out of class Monday morning, in protest of Bill 2 Back to School Act ending the Alberta teachers strike and forcing them back to worki.Alexandra Noad
Lethbridge Herald
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Students at LCI showed their support for teachers forced back to work by staging a walkout Wednesday morning, following the provincial government mandating teachers back to work.
The walkout started at 10 a.m. with about 50 students eaving class to cross the street in front of the school. Many Grade 12 students didn’t come to school at all, despite the fact that the province ordered school to resume.
The walkout was staged by Abigail Fortier, a Grade 11 student at LCI whose learning has been severely impacted by classroom sizes.
Fortier, who has ADHD, dyspraxia and a learning disability which affects her ability to understand written text, says lack of funding for the schools has prevented her from getting an educational assistant or even being able to get access to quiet spaces at the school.
She adds that each of her classes has over 30 students while others attending the school have over 60. As a result, says Fortier, students have noticed how rushed their instructors are when it comes to teaching curriculum.
“With the 70-minute classes and over 30 kids in my class, my teacher doesn’t have time to go over a lesson, do practice questions and answer questions.”
Sophie Chalmet, a Grade 10 student, says when she began attending school, she remembers having fewer than than 20 kids in a class and now, because of class sizes, she has to take learning into her own hands.
“I haven’t really been understanding the material, so I’ve had to go home and ask my dad, who (also) doesn’t know any of it and we’ve been searching through my textbooks trying to find stuff,” says Chalmet. “It hasn’t been easy and it’s been really stressful.”
She adds that forcing teachers back to work and pushing back a strike until 2028 isn’t going to solve the problems both teachers and students are facing right now.
“(There’s) a lot of problems that need to be fixed and we need to build more schools and get more teachers and proper funding that’s really the problem.”
Fortier is a member of the drama program, which is a credited course at LCI. She says the instructor has invested more than $12,000 of his own money for props, costumes and sets over the years to give the students the best experience he can.
“Our play rehearsals run for about three hours after school, (and) he gets paid for one hour of that,” says Fortier. “It’s an actual class; we get classwork for it, we get credits, but he doesn’t get paid for two hours of spending his own time and money of teaching.”
Fortier says she wants the government to understand that class sizes are too big and there needs to be more funding for teachers.
“We need the government, and other people, to realize there are too many students per class, not enough teachers and not enough support in general.”
She adds that she plans to continue protesting on her lunch breaks in the hope that it will draw more attention to the issues and result in pressure on government to address them.
17-16
I wonder how many teachers realize this:
An eligible can claim school supply tax credit to a tax return, with the following conditions:
§Refundable tax credit calculated in Step 6 of Tax Return
§Requires certification as an eligible educator
§Max. $1,000 of expenses claimed on Line 46800
§Max. $250 refundable credit claimed on Line 46900
§Corresponds to eligible supplies purchased
§CRA may request written certification from the employer or a delegated official, and may also request receipts
Something that they may want to negotiate next time. Food for thought
Gandolf: are you suggesting that the solution to having one’s Charter rights denied is to look for a tax deductible line expense?