If you are a teacher employed by a public, separate or francophone school board in Alberta, you are required to be an active member of the ATA. Other teachers may join as associate members. Education students may join as student members.
Active membership
More than 35,000 full- and part-time teachers form the core of the ATA’s active membership.
Eligibility
Alberta’s Teaching Profession Act makes membership in the ATA automatic upon employment as a teacher in the public education system.
There are two exceptions:
- A teacher who has been named by a board to be a superintendent or chief deputy superintendent
- A teacher who has elected to renounce their active membership in favour of associate membership or nonmembership
Substitute teachers
If you are a substitute teacher, you become an active member as soon as you are employed during a school year. You remain an active member until the end of that school year or until you are no longer on the approved substitute roster of the school board, whichever occurs first.
Benefits
As an active member, you can access all ATA services and enjoy high levels of job protection.
Fees
| Fees (effective September 1, 2023) | |
|---|---|
| Employed full-time | $1,347 per annum |
| On leave of absence | $96 per annum |
| Employed part-time | 1.25% of earnings in each month |
| Employed as an intern | 1.25% of earnings in each month |
| Employed as a substitute | 1% of earnings in each month |
Other memberships
Associate membership
Associate membership offers valuable benefits to a broad cross-section of people associated with Alberta K–12 education who are not eligible for active membership.
Benefits
- Consultation with ATA staff about educational issues
- Access to professional development funding and events (teachers’ conventions, specialist council conferences and more)
- Help with negotiating and enforcing collective agreement terms (in certain circumstances)
- Legal assistance with employment matters (in certain circumstances)
- Access to Association publications as well as library services and resources
- Participation in group insurance programs
- Voting rights in Association and local elections
Eligibility
- Teachers employed by federal, charter and private schools
- Teachers employed by other educational institutions (such as school boards)
- Faculty members at postsecondary institutions
- Teachers engaged in teacher education in private colleges affiliated with an Alberta university
- Unemployed teachers
- Retired teachers
- Teachers pursuing further studies full time
- Teachers employed by the Government of Alberta
- Teachers in kindergartens
- Teachers in Alberta schools operated by the Government of Canada
- Teachers employed by the Association or any of its local associations
- Teachers employed in community education programs operated by agencies other than school boards
- Teachers employed by the Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund (ATRF) board
- School board superintendents
- Elders, Knowledge Keepers and Cultural Advisors and noncertificated educators employed by First Nations school authorities
- Nonteacher professionals employed by school boards (ie, social workers, psychologists, therapists or clinicians)
- Other people the Provincial Executive Council may designate (subject to ratification by the Annual Representative Assembly)
Fee
$202.05 per year (effective September 1, 2022)
How to apply
Download, fill out and return an associate membership application form.
Student membership
Students in full-time undergraduate programs that lead to teacher certification in Alberta become student members of the ATA when they join their student local.
Student members receive services through their local and the provincial ATA. They cannot vote or hold office in the ATA.
Benefits
- Advice and consultation on professional matters
- ATA presentations and seminars
- Student Local Conference
- ATA News, ATA Magazine and other publications (including research publications)
- ATA library access (materials, reference services and online periodical databases)
- Free membership in all specialist councils
- Preferred rates at local retailers, recreation centres and Telus World of Science
- Opportunities to develop leadership skills
Fee
To join a student local, you must become a member of your postsecondary institution’s Education Students’ Association (ESA) or Education Undergraduate Society (EUS), which will forward $1 of your membership fee to the ATA. This automatically makes you a student member of the ATA.
Learn more about joining a student local
How to get an online ATA student membership
Life membership
Teachers who retire after 20 or more years of ATA membership are awarded life membership.
Life membership celebrates their long commitment to teaching and helps them maintain contact with the profession through free access to publications such as the ATA News and the ATA Magazine.
Life members are not entitled to vote or to hold office in the ATA. If they wish to participate in these activities, they must become associate members.
