In preparation for a looming strike by custodial and maintenance workers, both of Calgary’s public school boards are cancelling all public rentals of school spaces starting Saturday.
On Wednesday, more than 1,000 workers across the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) and Calgary Catholic School District (CCSD) issued a 72-hour strike notice. Their union, CUPE Local 40, said the main issue is wages.
It’s putting some language schools and minor sports clubs in a bind — forcing them to scramble for alternative spaces, move sessions online or cancel them altogether.
In southwest Calgary, the Tsinghua Chinese School works with roughly 200 kids for a variety of programs — from Saturday school to badminton club — held at Vincent Massey School and Robert Warren School.
The organization’s president, Allan Dong, said they considered looking for other spaces but they’re in a time crunch. Instead, they’re cancelling badminton sessions for now and moving all classroom lessons online.
“Saturday is coming. Sunday is coming. Probably we don’t have enough time to do that, so the best way is online right now,” said Dong.
For Calgary Rockies FC, the impact is wider. President Jens Lipper said the soccer club rents gymnasiums at over a dozen schools across both school districts for training throughout the week.
“A strike is a valid means, so that has to be honoured and deserves to be honoured. Obviously they have a need to be fulfilled,” said Lipper.
“I just don’t know if partially targeting minor sports and kids sports is necessarily the best means of that. But that’s not for us to judge.”
Some teams are partnering up with others that use private gyms or turf facilities, and other teams’ practices have been cancelled altogether, said Lipper.
He said the impact speaks to a larger problem: the lack of indoor soccer space in Calgary. Lipper pointed to a campaign recently launched by the Calgary Minor Soccer Association that calls for more government investment to build more facilities.
“If we all work together to create more space in the city for minor sports, the whole thing would not have the impact that it will have.”
At the Calgary Minor Basketball Association, executive director Ken King said he started looking for alternative facilities as soon as he heard rumblings of a potential strike.
He said it comes at a bad time.
“It’s playoff time of year for us. This coming weekend is our last week of regular season and then we have two weeks of city championships, and Calgary happens to be hosting the provincial championships for the first time in a decade this year.”
Provincial championships are taking place March 14-16 — but King said there is uncertainty around where it’ll happen.
He said the association is working with charter schools and private schools to expand hours in the morning and evening to fill gaps, and has found some spaces in Okotoks and Airdrie.
He said he recognizes the inconvenience for families, and agrees with Lipper that this underscores the need for more sports facilities in the city.
According to a CBE spokesperson, the City of Calgary — which handles bookings for the school districts — will contact renters about resuming bookings once the strike is over.