With a month left for most students across British Columbia, the B.C. Teachers Federation (BCTF) is concerned a shortage of classroom teachers and on-call teachers will continue into the new school year. Union president Glen Hansman is calling on the province to find additional teachers before September.
“We were never at a point this year where we were fully stocked. Both on the side of continuing teachers, the jobs actually in classrooms, but also the availability of teachers teaching on call,” said Hansman. “We have had a huge problem where say the Grade 4 teacher is absent one day there is no one in the school district that can replace her that day because the employers doesn’t have enough teachers to go around.”
The BCTF is calling on the provincial government to improve the way teachers are recruited to British Columbia, including a boost in funding for housing allowances and moving costs. One of the challenges the B.C. school system faces is that teacher wages are below other provinces while the cost of living, especially in Metro Vancouver, is much higher.
“When someone is graduating from Ontario or Alberta and they have huge loan to pay off they are not likely to look at B.C. as a viable option when there are also full-time jobs in those other provinces that pay a lot more as a starting salary,” said Hansman. “We have proposed offering student loan forgiveness programs for teachers in B.C.”
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What has made the lack of teachers concerning to Hansman is that in many cases when a teacher is sick or away a special education teacher, aboriginal education teacher or school counselor is pulled out of their jobs into the classroom.
“The kids they were supposed to be working with don’t get those supports,” said Hansman. “Here we are on the first day of June having gone through an entire school year without these problems being properly addressed.”
The BCTF has compiled a list of recommendations to improve recruitment, which include: mentorship programs to support retention of new teachers, waiving fees for retiring teachers trying to re-certify, expanding access to the current rural and remote living allowance, a student loan forgiveness program and a shortened salary grid to make teachers’ starting wages more competitive with other provinces.
Education Minister Rob Fleming is currently implementing recommendations into ways the province can recruit and retain new teachers. When the NDP came to power last year, the province was in the midst of restoring classrooms to 2002 levels based on the Supreme Court of Canada ruling. That meant the province needed to hire between 3,500 to 3,700 new teachers.
“We have had some school districts that have had a 100 per cent success in hiring as well as keeping and replenishing a teacher on-call list. But we do know we have more to do,” said Fleming. “We got through an extraordinary year, not entirely unscathed, but successful none the less.”
Global News spoke to a mother of a special needs son who said she had to be on-call to pick up her son due to a lack of trained staff. She says she has since pulled him from public school and feels bad because not all parents have that option.
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