Help wanted. With just over a week left before the school year starts, dozens of teaching positions are still vacant in more than 30 school districts across B.C.
As of this week, 171 full-time jobs still need to be filled by September in Vancouver, Surrey, Abbotsford, Osoyoos, Fort St. John, Prince George and other districts, according to Make a Future, the recruitment arm of the B.C. Public School Employers Association.
The vacancies were highest in the north, where 48 positions are yet to be filled, followed by Metro Vancouver with 36.
The need is less urgent in the Greater Victoria, Saanich and Sooke school districts, which have filled most of their positions.
Glen Hansman, president of the B.C. Teachers Federation, said the hiring crunch is a result of the Supreme Court of Canada decision last fall, which required districts to hire an additional 3,000 teachers in order to fulfil class-size and composition requirements.
The decision immediately restored clauses deleted from the teachers contract by the Liberal government of Gordon Campbell in 2002.
“Because of all the new jobs created by the Supreme Court decision, the supply of teachers is less than what is needed by the job postings out there,” Hansman said.
There are more than 400 job openings across the province for teachers, including part-time and teachers-on-call positions. Districts are looking for teachers who can teach classes ranging from math and science to fine arts, computers, French immersion and special education.
The Greater Victoria district has hired more than 200 teachers for its on-call listings and is now in the process of matching those individuals with teaching assignments, while the Saanich district will start the 2016-17 school year with 40 new teachers.
Sooke school board chairman Ravi Parmar said that there is only a handful of teaching jobs in the district still to fill. He said about 120 teachers have been hired in relation to the court ruling.
On Tuesday, the Vancouver school board posted 280 part-time and full-time positions, a mix of classroom teachers, counsellors and resource positions. That’s roughly three times the normal amount of postings for this time of year, said a board spokesman.
Surrey, home to B.C.’s largest school district, had just concluded its last posting for 90 jobs, which closed Monday.
“We don’t anticipate problems in having those positions filled,” said spokesman Doug Strachan.
The district needed to hire 138 teachers because of the court decision, and another 30 to account for growth, he said.
“We’ve hired a great deal off our [teachers-on-call] list. … We had to dip into it more than we had in previous years.”
Hansman said the post-election uncertainty didn’t help the pace of recruitment.
The district and the BCTF conducted recruitment drives outside of B.C., but it’s unclear whether their efforts have resulted in an increased number of applications or hires.
“It’s a tough slog because the affordability issues in B.C. are known across the country,” he said, citing the high costs of rental accommodations and real estate.
“Also the fact that starting salaries are more or less the worst in the country — when you’re paying off student loans, considering moving expenses to start a new life in the province, it’s a hard sale.”
— With a file from the Times Colonist
