Administrators called into classrooms amid B.C. teacher shortage

The Superintendent of the Sooke School District found himself in a classroom last week in the latest example of how a shortage of teachers is affecting B.C.’s schools.

“I’ve been in classrooms lots, but not as the teacher,” said superintendent Jim Cambridge.

Last week, Cambridge was tasked with teaching a class of special needs students because the district’s Dunsmuir Middle School couldn’t find a substitute.

“It wasn’t a long time, I was there, and they ended up getting a teacher on call for the afternoon,” he said.

Cambridge said in the past, the district had about 200 substitutes.

But the recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling that restored caps on class size and composition has forced the province to hire about 3,500 teachers.

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With that hiring spree, many of those substitutes have now taken full contract positions — draining the pool of potential on-call teachers.

For now, Cambridge said administrators are making up for the shortage.

“Therefore, anyone with a teaching certificate that doesn’t work in a school — and that would be the district office, and there’s about 30 of us in our district being superintendents, district principles and coordinators — would be available to cover.”

The district has also cancelled unnecessary meetings to ensure an educator is available until the district builds its teacher on call list, Cambridge said.

The BC Teachers’ Federation has said the province is short about 1,000 teachers, about two thirds of them substitutes.