It’s the last week of summer vacation for students. What parents should be doing is enjoying the final few days of summer vacation, buying pencils and backpacks, and reviewing bus pickup times.

Instead, they’re wondering whether their children will go back to school next week as scheduled.

And if they do start school, will it come to a screeching halt in a few days? Will there be sports? Planned field trips? Lunch-hour supervision? What can students and parents expect this school year?

How did we get here? In May, teachers rejected a mediated settlement despite the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) recommendation to accept it. A strike vote followed and passed in early June. Public school teachers are now in the middle of a 120-day window to give 72-hour strike notice, meaning parents have been left all summer to wonder what September will bring.

Parents want their kids in school learning, especially a mere three years after extensive learning loss due to COVID shutdowns between 2020 and 2022. Students are still showing the after-effects of this.

If teachers strike, there’s no guarantee it will be for a short time. During a previous strike in February 2002, Alberta students missed nearly three weeks of school. In British Columbia in 2014, strike action dragged out for more than five months and students were out of class for the first two weeks of the 2014-15 year.

There’s still hope — bargaining continues this week. But that’s a tight timeline to reach an agreement.

Absent a deal, parents want options. In recent years, every kind of alternative education has grown dramatically. In 2023-24, home education saw a 16 per cent increase and the independent school population rose by 10.5 per cent. Meanwhile, charter school enrolment grew by 17 per cent in 2024-25.

Throw in the threat of a strike — or any degree of interrupted education, normalcy and routine — and parents’ desire for options grows exponentially. Following the 2014 B.C. teachers strike, independent school enrolment rose by nearly seven per cent — 3.5 times that of a normal year.

Growing a diversified educational ecosystem is the best way to protect students’ interests in these kinds of situations. More options means parents (and students) are in the driver’s seat. Families can choose a school with best-fit education for their child, resulting in greater academic success and personal growth. Simultaneously, a greater proportion of schools would be immune to ATA strikes; and the mere existence of alternatives outside the three public systems reduces the strike risk for everyone.

Alberta already has the most robust, diversified education system in Canada. Yet, learning options remain limited because of excessive barriers to entry, ongoing operation and expansion for both charter and independent schools.

Alberta parents have a limited ability to move their children into a school that is immune to strikes. These schools are already growing as fast as they possibly can: for instance, Alberta Classical Academy has opened three campuses to serve 1,500 students since 2022, and still had 1,800 applications (for fewer than 200 spots) for the 2025-26 school year. Thousands of children remain on both independent and charter school wait lists. Thousands more can’t even get on a wait list.

Creativity abounds on how to open the education system to empower communities to meet their own needs, including such things as guaranteeing first-year funding for independent schools, reducing startup barriers for both charters and independents, and supporting independent school capital funding via a pilot project. If Alberta is serious about putting students first and ensuring as many children as possible can continue to get an interruption-free education, the government should pursue such policies, which improve the system for every child, in every situation, regardless of strike threats.

Parents shouldn’t be spending the last days of summer in a haze of uncertainty because of teachers’ contract negotiations. Let’s also remember that the ATA’s 120-day strike authorization period doesn’t end until Oct. 7.

It might also be a very long autumn for students and parents.

• Catharine Kavanagh is western stakeholder director at Cardus.