There are not enough teachers to fill all the jobs in Maple Ridge and across the province, and their union is filing a grievance.
Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows union head Suzanne Hall said the issue here is specialty teachers and teachers on call.
She holds the title of acting president of the Maple Ridge Teachers’ Association, having replaced the George Serra, who went on to the BCTF’s head office. She was acclaimed to the position in union votes last month. The new vice-president is Penny Morgan.
“We have definitely continued to see shortages in our schools,” said Hall. “The district has struggled all year long to have enough TTOCs.”
She said teachers on call, or substitute teachers, have been augmented by numerous retired teachers who came back to School District No. 42 on an on-call basis. Without them, there would have been a crisis, said Hall.
When a TTOC is not available to fill in for a sick or absent teacher, classrooms are staffed with librarians and support teachers, who are supposed to be dealing with special needs students, or administrators, she said.
In the past, the TTOC pool would be filled by newly graduating teachers, but with the demand for more educators in the province, new teachers are going straight from university to full-time employment.
The shortage of subs has meant missed in-service training opportunities in the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows district, said Hall.
The BCTF filed a grievance, president Glen Hansman said in a news release, because the shortages remain a significant problem for many schools and threaten to cause disruption in the next school year.
“It’s now June 1st, and there are still reports of non-certified teachers working in classrooms, students with special needs losing out on their programs or being sent home, and hundreds of classes with class compositions that don’t meet the learning needs of students,” he said.
“While there were some announcements in February to slightly increase teacher education spots, the lack of bold action and provincial co-ordination means the shortage will make the next school year challenging, as well.”
The complaint is now in arbitration.
The union has proposed several recommendations, including making housing and moving allowances accessible in all school districts, mentorship programs to retain new teachers, and waiving fees for retiring teachers trying to re-certify.
Other recommendations include expanding access to the current rural and remote living allowance, a student loan forgiveness program and changes to starting salaries and financial assistance for qualification upgrades.
A Supreme Court of Canada decision in 2016 forced the provincial government to restore staffing to 2002 levels after it ruled a former Liberal government improperly took away the union’s right to bargain class size and the composition of those classes.
An agreement was reached on class size and composition in March 2017.
Education Minister Rob Fleming said the government knew there would be challenges as districts tried to hire the largest number of teachers in generations. The government hired 3,500 teachers last year as part of its obligations stemming from the Supreme Court decision.
“We have some more work to do with additional teacher recruitment, that’s why we’ve funded more teacher-training spaces, that’s why we have 1,800 new graduates coming out of universities next year ready to be teachers.”
Fleming said he believes school districts are going to be able to complete their hiring and replenish teacher-on-call lists in time for the next school year.
Districts were recruiting across the country and 97 per cent of the hiring was completed this year, Fleming said, adding somewhere between 3,500 and 3,700 teachers.
Fleming announced another $571,000 train 100 teachers in fields such as special education, French, math and physics.
Despite that, Hansman said bold action is needed.
“If the government and school districts don’t address these concerns urgently, students will keep losing out when the new school year starts.”
– with files from Ashley Wadhwani