Teacher shortages leave divisions uncertain as classes resume

Constant juggling of staff is becoming safety issue, says Catholic spokesperson

After the first four months of classes showed the name of the education game during a pandemic is flexibility, Regina's school divisions are looking ahead to the second half of the year with few answers to the challenges posed by the first half.

“Pivot” and “flexible” became all-too-familiar words to school staff, said Twylla West, spokesperson for Regina Catholic School Division (RCSD).

One school even created a “P-word jar” to keep track of how many times people used the word pivot.

“I probably owe that school a few dollars now,” West said.

The need to pivot isn't going away anytime soon, predicted

West. That's about the only prediction she would make regarding what the division might face in the rest of the school year. Ongoing challenges with high numbers of staff and students to self-isolating and a shortage of substitute teachers continue to make daily operations difficult.

Between Nov. 16 and Dec. 10, RCSD was averaging 3,500 students missing from in-person classes each day, approximately 30 per cent of its 12,000 students.

As of Dec. 10, 84 staff were self- isolating because of COVID-19 cases in schools. More were self-isolating for other reasons.

Each day, the division was short eight substitute teachers — even after getting “very creative” with remaining staff in schools by redeploying staff like teacher librarians and vice principals into full-time teaching roles, said West.

At a certain point, this staffing shortage becomes a safety concern. West said that is what ultimately drove the division to move to Level 4 (full online learning) for the weeks immediately before and after the Christmas break.

“When you look at (those statistics), it's easy to see how difficult this was. The move to Level 4, we were asking something very difficult of our families and we're aware of that and we know that it's not easy. We were in a difficult position,” said West.

She couldn't rule out the possibility of RCSD needing to move to Level 4 again because of staffing shortages.

Students at RCSD and Regina Public Schools returned after the holidays on Monday to a week of online classes. They will return to in-person classes on Jan. 11.

Regina Public Schools declined to comment on these challenges, but in an update posted its website on Dec. 7, the division noted employees had clocked in a total of 1,100 absences due to quarantining.

It also said the division has seen a “chronic shortfall of replacement staff due to more employee absences and a reduced pool of available substitute staff.

“Increased employee absenteeism due to COVID-19 and our inability to fill those absences is challenging the ability of school staff to keep students safe,” the update said.

To help address these teacher shortages, the Saskatchewan Professional Teachers Regulatory Board (SPTRB) has begun issuing temporary teaching permits to fourth-year Bachelor of Education students who have already completed their internship, but not yet convocated.

SPTRB has currently received 60 applications from across the province for these temporary teaching certificates and has already started issuing them, said SPTRB registrar and COO Trevor Smith.

With teacher shortages and the large number of students missing each day, Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation (STF) president Patrick Maze said the quality of education might be suffering somewhat, but he stressed that safety is key.

“Keeping everyone safe is the main goal, and then doing our best to ensure there aren't gaps created due to the number of transitions that have gone on throughout the last eight months or so,” he said.

“We can always address gaps in education down the road, but ... if students are taking the virus back to elderly parents or grandparents, then that's a huge concern.”

He said the Ministry of Education also communicated to divisions shortly before the holidays that teachers wearing a face mask and face shield would not be deemed close contacts if a student in their classroom later tested positive. This would help cut down on the number of staff needing to self-isolate.

West said non-surgical masks and face shields have been available to all teachers since the start of the school year. The division has also ordered enough surgical grade masks and face shields for all teachers that are expected to arrive in the next couple of weeks.