Teachers in the Parkland School Division on Thursday appeared poised to strike after last-ditch negotiations ended Wednesday night without a deal.

If a contract cannot be reached by midnight Thursday, 550 teachers in the school district east of Edmonton won't be at school Friday morning.

The Parkland School Division serves 9,000 students in Spruce Grove, Stony Plain and Parkland County.
(CBC News)

"Teachers are cleaning out their desks and aren't sure when they are going to be back with their students," Alberta Teachers Association local president Robert Twerdoclib said.

Late Thursday afternoon, the two sides still had not resumed talks.

"Despite the board’s negotiating team being available all day to bargain, the union and its local president have made every indication they plan to maintain their current position of taking students out of the classroom tomorrow morning," board chair Grace Gruber said in an afternoon statement.

"As the union gets ready to take its teachers out, the board asks that parents … [be] prepared for their children to be home."

While the union says teachers are seeking improved working conditions, the school board says teachers are coming to the table with costly and unreasonable demands.

Education minister says he won't step in

Education Minister Ron Liepert said Thursday he won't be stepping in.

"The Parkland dispute is a local dispute between the ATA and the school board association, and all that I am recommending is that both sides take into account student education and I can't see where a strike, or in another case, a lockout would do anything to enhance the education of students."

The teachers have been without a collective agreement since the end of August. After an unsuccessful attempt to resolve differences through a mediator, the teachers voted in October to back a strike.

The school board is offering a three-year deal with a 9.5-per-cent salary increase and a formula that would see salaries go even higher based on the salary hikes of the teachers' provincial counterparts.

Teachers were locked out two years ago, but the province ordered them back to work the same day.

There are 22 schools in the Parkland School Division, which serves 9,000 students in the city of Spruce Grove, the town of Stony Plain and Parkland County.