Tentative deal with teachers worries Alberta school boards

The tentative deal reached between teachers and the province could mean bigger class sizes and fewer classroom aides, the president of the Alberta School Boards Association says.

The cap on instructional hours by 2014 is the main problem, Jacquie Hansen told CBC News. But she's also upset school boards weren't included in the deal-making process.

"It was very disheartening … for us and, you know, we've got this deal that's landed in our lap now," Hansen said. 

"It may mean bigger class sizes, it may mean fewer aids in the classroom, it may mean paying more to get on the bus. There's only so much money a school board has to work with, so when you start to mandate these kinds of limits on how a school board can work you can expect negative impacts at the classroom level."

Hansen said her group will have to examine the proposed deal "and figure out what the impacts are. And now we have to decide whether we will endorse this or not and at this point we are not entirely sure that we would."

On Monday, school boards will be going over the deal, which has already been endorsed by the Alberta Teachers Association.

The agreement is the same as the previous deal offered to teachers — a three-year wage freeze with a two per cent increase in the fourth year — but now includes a one per cent cash bonus for teachers in the fourth year of the deal in addition to a two per cent salary increase.