As summer comes to a close, the doors of neighbourhood schools have reopened once again, and the excitement of both parents, students, and educators for a new year is palpable.

For some of the youngest students in Calgary, Sept. 2 marked the opening of Windsor Park School with an opportunity to see their friends in a brand-new setting.

Despite the looming threat of labour action by teachers, the Calgary Board of Education and parents both agree that they are ready for a new school year.

Pat Bishop, a parent of a Grade 2 student at Windsor Park School, said that the possibility of a strike is on his mind and that finding child care could be tough, but his family will figure it out.

“The teachers deserve a fair wage and everything proper. So, if that’s how it has to happen, that’s how it has to happen; everyone’s entitled to their opinions and a fair wage and a fair working environment,” he said.

That sentiment was echoed by parent Chelsey Mehls, who said that her family supported the teachers.

“They have a really hard job to do, and as parents, we just want them to feel supported. If they decide to go on a strike, then that’s their choice, and we’ll just have to roll with the punches,” she said.

Calgary Board of Education (CBE) Chief Superintendent Joanne Pitman, speaking to the media outside of Windsor Park School, said that CBE is prepared with contingency plans for labour action.

“Should we receive 72 hours’ notice, which is what is required, and we will be prepared to communicate to families with clear plans and also with an understanding that safety of students, all of the difference pieces are looked after,” she said.

Pitman said that any of the before and after-school providers who are currently operating in CBE schools would be allowed to do so, but in the event of a strike, there wouldn’t be a transition to online learning provided by CBE educators.

She said that the biggest concern that the board was hearing from parents was uncertainty.

“We know that families are always managing child care and many other challenges in terms of organization, and so that uncertainty is certainly the biggest impacting factor, and again, our goal is to communicate as soon as we are able to, if necessary,” said Pitman.

“Families always need to be prepared based on their individual circumstances, no matter what might be looming, whether it’s personal or otherwise. We always encourage families to be prepared with contingency plans of their own.”

Tens of thousands of students return to school

The Calgary Board of Education has projected more than 146,000 students for the 2025–26 school year, which was approximately 4,000 more students than in the previous school year.

Pitman did not directly answer questions about what the average classroom size would be for this year, instead saying that it would vary from school to school.

“That changes across each one of our schools based on the school size, the number of classrooms we have available, and students don’t come in nice, neat, graded packages. So, that changes from community to community, and we work to be flexible. Our goal is always to keep class sizes to support learning as best we can,” she said.

“There are examples where we do have higher class sizes. We work together with our principals, they’re making decisions to make sure they’re choosing courses, making teachers available, and supporting the students in different ways. Where we do have larger class sizes, I’m very confident in the work that our principals do in making those decisions.”

She said part of that work was to install new modular classrooms, move existing modular classrooms, and monitoring student enrolment.

“It’s really hard for families to hear when they move into a community, or have lived in a community and there’s no longer space… we have over 31 schools across our system where we are seeing students being overflowed. That is a decrease from last year, and that’s a result of a great deal of work across our facilities and project teams,” said Pitman.

In developed neighbourhoods, that meant prioritizing the modular classroom program and shifting classroom spaces, which has created an additional 3,200 individual student spots, she said.

Pitman said that disused storage rooms, learning commons spaces, career and technology studies spaces, and even staff rooms have been redesigned to become regular classrooms for students.

The Calgary Board of Education is expected to be at 100 per cent utilization rate for the entire school system by 2029.

“That’s something that we are obviously doing a great deal of work on, trying to address, and it looks different in different areas of our city,” said Pitman.