The New Westminster school district needs 15 new teachers to fill vacancies created by an interim agreement between the provincial government and the B.C. Teachers’ Federation.
The hiring blitz comes two months after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of the teachers’ federation over legislation passed by the province in 2002 that stripped clauses from the teachers’ contract about class size, the number of specialist teachers required in schools and the number of special needs students in classrooms.
Through the interim agreement, reached earlier this month, the Ministry of Education gave New Westminster $596,000 to hire new staff. The district wants nine classroom teachers, two English language learning teachers, one counsellor, two librarians and one resource teacher by the end of the month, according to Pat Duncan, superintendent of the New Westminster school district.
But when the official agreement will come is anyone’s guess, Duncan admitted.
With the annual budget process underway, the district is eagerly awaiting an official agreement so it can determine if new classroom space is needed. If it is, the district will be on the hook for those costs, Duncan said.
“Space is the issue,” he said. “So that’s no longer fully funded, or appears to be. So will there be more capital dollars? We don’t know.”
Queen Elizabeth Elementary School in Queensborough, for example, is nearly bursting at its seams. The district already plans to bring one portable to the site, Duncan said, but depending on the outcome of the new agreement, the school could need a second one.
Duncan hopes negotiations will end by mid-March so the district can properly plan out its budget. If it’s later than that, he said senior administration will have to work on two different staffing scenarios.
“It makes it difficult,” he said. “If we were doing the 2001 language model, we would have to walk into that anticipating that would be fully funded by the government, and I really truly believe it will be. That was the Supreme Court of Canada decision.”
Meanwhile, there won’t be any disruption to classes once the district hires its new teachers.
Of the nine new classroom teachers, four are at the high school level, three are at the elementary school level and two are at the middle school level.
These elementary and middle school teachers could be working at several different schools, depending on the need, Duncan said.
“We will not be going in and separating classes,” he said. “What we’ve heard from our teachers is they would love the ability to have someone come into their classroom and maybe work with the entire class while the classroom teacher worked with Johnny, Alice and Frank over here in the corner.”
Prospective staff have until Jan. 20 to apply for one of the 15 positions up for grabs in New Westminster.
