Schools struggling to find substitute teachers
The number of teacher absences that the Vancouver school district could not fill with substitutes more than quintupled from 928 days in the 2015-16 school year to 4,819 in 2016-17.
“The district can’t handle dayto-day absences due to illness,” said Glen Hansman, president of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation. “These are huge numbers and most of the time it’s kids with special needs (who) are having their services disrupted.”
That’s because, when a substitute teacher cannot be found, administrators and special-needs teachers are asked to fill in, he said.
The Vancouver school board released the figures in response to a freedom of information request by the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers’ Association. Figures for absences so far in the 2017-18 school year were not included.
The shortage of teachers in B.C. has been acute since last year’s Supreme Court of Canada decision, which restored contract provisions on class size and composition requirements, and required districts to hire more than 3,000 teachers.
Provincewide, there are 396 unfilled positions in B.C. school districts, with openings for fulltime elementary-school teachers, French immersion teachers, special education teachers and substitute teachers. Substitutes are increasingly hard to find, because most of the province’s substitutes landed full-time positions, said Hansman. “I would anticipate that there will be even more unfilled absences this school year.”
The Vancouver district has 65 job openings, far more than any other district. North Vancouver comes second with 25 open positions, while Prince George and Peace River North have more than a dozen each. Surrey — B.C.’s largest school district — has just five job openings.
“There is still a lot of intraprovincial movement, meaning teachers already working in B.C. are accepting jobs in other districts and leaving openings behind when they go,” said Hansman.
Because of the high cost of housing and the prospect of long commutes, Vancouver seems to be suffering the most from this phenomenon, he said. “We are really concerned that a big district like Vancouver hasn’t got enough teachers for their open positions or enough teachers teaching on call,” he said.
Since February, the Vancouver district has hired 428 teachers and recruited 672 substitutes, but nearly 200 teachers have resigned since last spring and 119 teachers retired in June.
The board has been recruiting teachers in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan and the district is now able to offer out-ofprovince teachers moving allowances, according to David Nelson, associate superintendent for school services. Filling specialist positions is a challenge, especially in the remote areas of the province, according to the education ministry.
Most of the time it’s kids with special needs (who) are having their services disrupted.