2022 Substitute Teachers' Conference Report

This year's Substitute Teachers' Conference was on October 14-15, held at DoubleTree by Hilton on the west end.

Friday night opened with keynote on the topic of "If not NOW, When Will You Take Time for Your Wellness". We delved into setting boundaries, and gave thought about if we said YES to some things, to what or whom are we denying our time as a result. It could be that we say YES to a day of work while we sacrifice our time promised with family or time booked for health checkup or self-care. As substitute teachers become busier and busier, it is a good opportunity to setup boundaries and priorities for ourselves to preserve our well being.

Saturday morning opened with a Curriculum Update. While I appreciate the update regarding the direction and plans for implementation testing and rollout, I found discussing about how WE can implement the curriculum a bit non-applicable. The reason being that substitute teachers mostly follow a prescribed plan by the teacher they are replacing and that plan should include curriculum implementation strategies. If subs have the opportunity to take on a longer term coverage, this may be applicable. But I feel a session on curriculum implementation would be better served as a separate PD where interested individuals may attend on their own.

Breakout Sessions I have attended were Collective Agreement, Meeting for Substitute Teachers Local Chairs, and Indigenous Alberta—The Footsteps of Our Ancestors. Collective Agreement introduced some of the services ATA offers to all teachers and parts of the Collective Agreement that is of interest to substitute teachers. We discussed a bit about grid pay and Employment Insurance before comments about fair treatment and pay derails the presentation. This always happens. Subs can spend a week and then some discussing and venting about fair treatment and what they feel is fair pay.

Next session was the Meeting for Substitute Teachers Local Chairs. This is the meeting where we bring up any challenges and issues we face with our school board, whether it is communicating with other subs or the hurdles school boards present. I feel this session is quite useful because we are discussing these issues with the chair reps for substitute teachers at the provincial level who have more connections to make these struggles be heard. And yes, this sometimes also becomes a venting session about pay and money.

Last session at Indigenous Alberta—The Footsteps of Our Ancestors, I feel I've learned the most although we did not have the amount of time we really needed. The presenter brought about awareness of the struggles and history of the indigenous folks. There is just so much to talk about in just this area that we were not able to discuss other aspects such as reconciliation.

Closing keynote was What Matters Most which ties in nicely with the Friday night keynote. The presenter is a stage 3+ lymphoma cancer survivor and she talked about how she navigated between her life, career, family, and health amidst her battle with cancer. I was left with feeling the need to reflect on my life and my priorities.

Substitute Teachers' Conference happens annually mid October, location alternates between Calgary and Edmonton. The Local will typically reimburse the registration fee and mileage if out of town. Please contact Local President for details. 2023 Conference will be held in Calgary.