Dated textbooks, equipment shortages: Back-to-school challenges for B.C. teachers

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The new school year is just over a few weeks away. Are your kids ready? What about their teachers?

It’s the third year for the new kindergarten to Grade 9 curriculum, with the new one for Grade 10 students coming online this year.

Glen Hansman, president of the BC Teachers’ Federation, is travelling the province to gauge resources in the 60 school districts.

“Sometimes I still see books that say ‘USSR’ on them. Or I’ll see maps that don’t have Nunavut on them,” he said.

“If you’re a science teacher, you might not have enough lab equipment for all your students. If you’re a P.E. teacher, you might not have basketballs that even bounce. So we’re not just talking about textbooks. But certainly, for English teachers and Math teachers, there are a lot of people around the province that don’t have complete sets to give their students.”

Hansman said some teachers may only have a decades-old edition of a textbook, which comes with obvious deficiencies. “That could be really problematic if we’re teaching social studies — especially representation of Indigenous people and how they might have been depicted in books in the past.”

He noted not the case everywhere. “It’s hit and miss around the province.”

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Some people may say this is nothing new — broken beakers, faulty bunsen burner, and not enough textbooks to go around were the norm for students over the past few decades.

But Hansman argued we are now seeing a bit of a different situation. “This is the first time in the B.C. curriculum where we’ve changed all the subject areas at all the grade levels, more or less at the same time.”

“There’s also a recognition that… the things that we might have included in our textbooks — or the gaps that we might have had in what students learn — need to be corrected. That is worth making the investment to make sure teachers have accurate, up-to-date and inclusive materials with which to use.”

Surrey School District still needs to hire dozens of staff members

The largest school district in B.C. is scrambling to fill dozens of positions ahead of September. Doug Strachan with the Surrey School District told us the list is long.

“We’re well down the path of hiring 66 more teachers for the upcoming school year. [We also need] 24 more educational assistants and about 28 support staff, as well as another school administrator. That’s the projected need for the upcoming schools year.

He admitted it will be a challenge, especially when it comes to hiring specialists. “School psychologists, counsellors, speech therapists, and French Immersion teachers.”

Strachan added they are expecting another 800 students to fill the classrooms.

“Last year was extraordinary because of the change in contract language, as a result of the Supreme Court decision, going on two years ago. That brought about hiring — not just for the Surrey School District, but across the province — and that created challenges. We’ve had human resources staff hired to go across Canada to recruit over the last year. That’s proven successful.”

He said this year has “settled down” compared to last year. “We’re kind of back to our routine hiring, which hasn’t really stopped in a couple of decades because of the rate of our growth.”

There will be six to 10 more portables coming to the school district, to add to the dozens that already dot school properties. Hansman adds some others will be shuffled around.

“We always seem to be ready to go in September. We’re confident we’ll be ready to go again this year.”