School District No. 91 (Nechako Lakes) has been struggling to recruit teachers for the 2017/18 school year.
“After hiring about 20 new teachers by early July, School District 91 has faced challenges attracting and filling positions this summer,” said Manu Madhok, assistant superintendent for School District 91. “This situation is a result of the increased hiring across B.C. and we know there are many districts facing similar challenges.”
Earlier this year, the B.C. government committed $330 million to settle a dispute with the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, funding 2600 new teacher positions. After the announcement, School District 91 anticipated that the additional hiring across the province would put a further strain on attracting teachers to the region.
“As a rural and remote school district, hiring qualified staff has been difficult for many years,” Madhok said after the announcement earlier this year. “Both the [school] district and the Burns Lake and Nechako Teacher’s Union anticipate challenges recruiting teachers to fill these new positions.”
As of last week, School District 91 still had 14 full-time and part-time positions open.
“We have positions available in all our four main communities [Burns Lake, Vanderhoof, Fraser Lake and Fort St. James], but the greatest need at this time is in Fort St. James.”
Madhok said School District 91 expects to meet the needs of students by asking current staff to fill in the gaps.
“We expect to place our full-time teachers on call into these vacant positions to ensure we have classrooms ready for students,” he said. “Any updates for students and parents will be sent home in September.”