The Superintendent of the Quesnel School District says there are a number of initiatives underway to try and address a teacher shortage in the district.
Dan Lowndes confirms that Quesnel, like all northern districts, face challenges when it comes to finding certified teachers.
“Teacher recruitment and retention has been a struggle for the most part in all northern districts for a few years now. We have limited non-certified teaching staff in classroom teaching positions, but we hold them to a really high expectation around what we expect around student success.”
Lowndes says they don’t have an exact number right now as it is still very early in the school year and positions are still being posted and filled.
As for getting more certified teachers, he says they have been partnering with with other districts in the north and with the province.
“We started last year a pilot project in Northern BC with a number of districts working together, really trying to be creative and think outside the box as far as recruitment strategies. There was a recruitment specialist that was supported by the Ministry to again try to help us be creative and figure out ways to increase certified teaching staff in the northern part of the province.”
Lowndes says they have also been partnering with post-secondary institutions.
“For example with the University of Calgary around supporting people who may be interested in becoming a teacher, for Districts to be able to support folks to be able to access their teaching credentials. We are one of those Districts, and we have been for a number of years.”
Lowndes says that program has been quite successful.
He says loan forgiveness is something else that the province has been talking about as a tool to entice teachers to work in the north, but Lowndes also points out that recruitment is just one piece of the puzzle.
He says retention is the other piece.
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