New school opens in Coquitlam as call for action on B.C. teacher shortage continues

A new elementary school with space for 430 students is opening its doors in Coquitlam on Tuesday, the first day of the 2023 to 2024 school year.

Coast Salish Elementary School was built with $38.3 million in provincial funds and $5 million in contributions from the Coquitlam School District.

“Our government is building, expanding and upgrading schools throughout B.C.,” said Education Minister Rachna Singh in a Monday news release.

“The brand-new Coast Salish Elementary school will welcome students this year, and soon Moody Elementary will join it to serve families in the Coquitlam School District.”

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The school includes a child-care centre that will accommodate 55 children between two-and-a-half and four years old.

Meanwhile, construction has also begun on the new $37.2-million Moody Elementary School, which will host about 385 students. That school is expected to open in 2025 and will also have a daycare space.

Since September 2017, the B.C. government said it has created 23,000 new student spaces in the province, with $3.4 billion more dedicated to school capital projects in the next three years.

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Last week, the province touted a 240-seat addition to École Elementaire K.B. Woodward in Surrey, and confirmed construction is underway for the new 655-seat Snokomish Elementary School.

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In the midst of these good news announcements, however, officials including Singh and Premier David Eby have faced mounting pressure to address a labour shortage in B.C. teaching.

Since last week, the union representing some 50,000 teachers in the province has sounded the alarm about the shortage, although its president said Monday he’s not aware of any schools that are scrambling for staff ahead of the bell on Tuesday.

Part of the problem, according to Clint Johnston, is the lack of formalized data to quantify the shortage. He has repeatedly called on the province to track those numbers as the BC Teachers’ Federation relies on internal surveys to gauge their scale.

“It happens year on year, every year — it’s just getting worse and worse,” he told Global News.

“It should be a concern for students and parents, because in B.C., I don’t think any parent should be worrying that their student’s not getting what they need in order to achieve all they can in education.”

When schools are short on teachers, he added, “non-enrolling specialists” are often called to fill in. Examples include teacher librarians, music specialists and reading resource teachers.

“When those individuals are pulled and put into a classroom due to shortages, that means those students lose those services, and it’s happening on an increasingly frequent basis,” he said.

Last year, the Chilliwack Teachers’ Association reported around 70 uncertified teachers worked across 31 sites to help fill vacancies. Many of the district’s on-call teachers were put into classrooms permanently as well, its president confirmed.

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On Monday, Eby acknowledged the labour challenge, but noted, “there’s challenges across many areas of hiring in British Columbia to find the people we need because we’re growing so quickly.”

“We think that certainly, the shortages that we’re facing are serious and we need to pay attention, and recruit and train additional teachers, but all kids are going to get a good education in British Columbia,” he said.

Eby repeated earlier comments by Singh that the province has added more than 250 teacher training seats in universities to address the issue and is examining the possibility of recognizing the credentials of internationally trained teachers.

He also cited wage increases for teachers under the province’s December 2022 deal with the union.

Johnston, however, pressed for more action to address the shortage in the short term, such as support for teachers with housing, forgiveness of student loans, and other incentives for teachers who move to rural and remote areas. In the long term, the union president said reducing teacher workload will be essential to teacher retention.