It’s a new school year, but the old story of increased growth continues to be a narrative for the Surrey school district.
Spokesperson Doug Strachan said more than 100 new teachers have been hired but said the hiring spree never really ends.
“We continue to hire specialty positions which are always difficult to fill, as well as some part-time positions and we also are hiring teachers to our teacher-on-call list,” said Strachan.
“It’s nothing new for the Surrey school district, we’ve pretty much had to hire non-stop for the better part of three decades.”
Strachan said 168 classrooms also had to be added this year.
“We have about 50 more portables this year than last year, so we’ve got about 325 portables. We’ve had that many in the past going back a few decades now.”
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Strachan said that increased use of portables will continue until construction is completed on the promise of new schools to fill the void.
The district voiced its concern weeks ago that it may not be able to hire enough teachers to fulfill a Supreme Court of Canada ruling to restore class size and composition.
The district is expected to teach more than 71,000 students this year alone.
3,500 new teachers for B.C.
Meanwhile, last week the province said it has hired around 3,500 new teachers to kick off the school year.
The Education Minister said it is one of the largest hiring sprees by the province in the last decade and racks up a total bill of $376-million.
But Rob Fleming said there are no plans for any new schools to be built just yet.
“One of the goals of this government, and it’s in my mandate letter given to you by Premier John Horgan is to come up with ways to build more schools more quickly across British Columbia,” said Fleming.
“Other provinces are doing it. The previous government just had no will or genuineness around a number of announcements they made.”
He said details around building more schools are expected to be announced during the NDP’s budget announcement in just a few weeks.
Fleming said there are still a few rural areas that are struggling to find specialist teachers.
The pressure is on for districts across the province to make sure teachers are in place and in smaller classrooms.
While ‘teacher shortages’ have been an ongoing topic around B.C., some bigger school districts like Vancouver and Richmond say it’s not affecting student learning.
Richmond School District Chair Debbie Tablotney says it’s just like any other school year in Richmond.
“We’re looking OK, so we’ll spend the next ten days so confirming our enrollment and checking on students and working through timetable changes for our students.”
And Dianne Turner with the Vancouver School board says”there will be a trained teacher in front of each classroom as school starts this year.”
Both districts say resource teachers like speech pathologists and psychologists are needed but hopeful those will be filled by October.
CKNW has reached out to several other school districts, while Burnaby also replied saying it’s not aware of problems involving teachers and student learning.
~With files from Kyle Benning and Emily Lazatin
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