Teacher-on-call shortage expected to worsen with teacher hiring spree
Posted February 2, 2017 10:26 pm.
Last Updated February 2, 2017 10:30 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SURREY (NEWS 1130) – Classroom substitutes have been in short supply in the Surrey school district for some time now but finding someone to supervise a classroom when a teacher is absent is about to get harder.
That’s because of the teacher hiring spree now underway. Surrey alone is hiring 128 new full-time teachers, and many more in September.
Fully-qualified teachers that have been acting as teachers-on-call are now applying for those full time positions.
“Already we have failure-to-fill where teachers call in an absence and it doesn’t get filled. So there is a concern that it will happen more and the district is aware of that,” says Gioia Breda with the Surrey Teachers Association.
A failure-to-fill situation forces the school to get a teacher’s aide or other support staff at the school to fill in.
Breda says the focus now is recruiting.
“I can imagine the district is going to want to get in touch with universities and new grads to try to attract them to Surrey.”
The most chronic shortage is for French immersion teachers-on-call.
Breda expects the hiring will continue in the fall, when she estimates another 180 elementary teachers will be needed in Surrey.
