“I’ve seen this coming and now we’re living it” says Director of Education Heather Campbell
A shortage of qualified teachers is affecting not only students in the Rainy River District, but across the rest of Canada and the world as well.
Heather Campbell, Director of Education for the Rainy River District School Board (RRDSB), explained a shortage of qualified teachers is affecting the district, the province, and countries internationally. According to Campbell, this shortage is exacerbated by an alteration to sick leave policies and other unique local challenges school boards navigate. To ensure continuity of learning, some proposed solutions include raising the number of days a retiree can work, a complete removal of enrollment caps, an increase in funding for teacher education, and more.
“Everyone across Canada, every province, is experiencing teacher shortages,” said Campbell. “[There are] significant shortages in the US as well.”
While the shortages affect millions of students across North America, the Rainy River District has a pile of issues adding up.
“What is happening locally is we’re relying on uncertified teachers, and we’re grateful for those people who potentially want to explore teaching as a career, or have worked in our system in another capacity and have the experience and confidence to step in as an uncertified teacher,” said Campbell.
“We’re really reliant on them, and it’s a safety component because we need to have someone always in those rooms, regardless of what age they are, from K to 12. We have difficulty filling specialized positions. So, French as a second language is a good example, and that’s one that’s felt across across Ontario. Then we have things like McCrosson [Tovell School.] People may not know, but the majority of the students from McCrosson Tovell School in Berglund are bused to Riverview School in Rainy River because we could not find the number of teachers that typically would teach there.”
This leaves parents and school boards to find the time and foot the bill to get their students to school.
“It’s a 70-minute bus ride one way. Hence, grades four to eight go to Riverview, which is a long bus ride,” said Campbell.
“There are so many other benefits [to] being in a bigger school for those students, and we have worked with the community to ensure that it’s working well, but that means that those kids have a longer bus ride, which is not ideal for us in any way.”
While the Rainy River District School Board is busy piloting those issues, principals need to patch up the schedule depending on who calls in sick to work.
“The other problem we have is, our principals are getting up very, very early in the morning to try and see who is absent for the day and what positions are unfilled,” said Campbell. She added that principals “are masters” of keeping things running smoothly among teachers taking sick time.
“I think that’s why the public doesn’t always see the impact on our schools. But, if you can imagine having students, you have intervention programs that are paused so that we can move that teacher into a classroom to support students,” said Campbell.
“In our secondary schools, we send some senior classes to study hall, which is less than ideal when you’re trying to prepare students to go off to post-secondary.”
While principals find increasingly creative ways to circumnavigate this international phenomenon, Campbell suggested these clever solutions aren’t conducive to instilling a sense of lifelong learning in students, or a continuity of learning.
“[Principals and Vice Principals,] they’re covering classes too,” said Campbell.
“It’s amazing what they do every day. But, at the same time, sending kids home for the day and saying we have no teachers, it’s a safety issue, and we have to close that classroom down.”
Not only is it a safety issue, but Campbell said it might set some student back in their learning of the curriculum.
“Trying to move ahead with a very dense, a very good curriculum, but a very dense curriculum [has difficulties.] … Like, if you’re pulling intervention teachers, that means someone who needs that support isn’t getting it consistently either,” she explained.
“So, it’s it’s a myriad of of impacts that aren’t helping us move further in our results for [student] achievement.”
In this dynamic circumstance, Campbell said that teachers are trying hard to provide the best educations for their students but the unpredictability can lead to a less than ideal teaching and working situation.
“I could see that there are a lot of people working very, very hard to make things work as best as they can, to give the best education for students,” Campbell said.
“But, at the end of the day, it’s at a cost to our staff, especially our administrators, because of this added workload of trying to play catch up with things, [and] trying to make things work as much as possible. If you’re a teacher who has prep time and you have a plan in place, that plan may be disrupted as far as preparing for future assignments or activities. That plan is disrupted to cover a class. Similarly, if you’re in as an intervention teacher, a Special Education Resource Teacher, you have paperwork to do. You have testing to do. You’ve got other things to do. Administrators too, have appraisals to do. There are tons of things that are our responsibilities as a school administrator, and those things are put aside to ensure that there’s coverage for all classes.”
Across her time as Director of Education for RRDSB, Campbell said she’s seen the problem approaching, and it looks like it will only get worse, as she said enrollment numbers across the province are expected to increase in the next few years, and there will need to be more teachers to balance that out.
“[For me,] this is 15 years as a director of education. I’ve seen this coming, and now we’re living it,” said Campbell. “It’s here now, and it’s projected to get worse by 2027 because apparently there’s a bump in enrollment across the whole province. We won’t have that pool of teachers at our disposal to hire and fill vacancies,” said Campbell.
“That’s a concern.”
While the circumstances seem dire, Campbell said there are possible options that could provide short and longer-term relief.
“A short-term [solution] would be to raise the number of days that retirees can teach. Presently it’s 50, and if we could go back to 90 as a short-term solution to get us through the next year or two, when we know we’re going to be hit with the greatest number of shortages across our province, that’s one suggestion,” said Campbell.
“The other one is to remove the enrollment caps on the faculties of education, and also provide increased funding for those programs because we know that our future workforce is dependent on quality education and teachers are important to making a difference for kids and their futures. If we want a strong society, we need to invest in education and invest not only in the education system K-12 but also the post-secondary teacher education program.”
Not only does there need to be investment and policy changes to teacher education, but Campbell said there could also be better recognition of prior learning.
“Right now, if you’re without a degree, you are placed in a lower [pay] category across the province,” said Campbell.
“If we could have what we call a Prior Learning Assessment Recognition, [teachers] can demonstrate they are fluent, that they have a level of fluency, then give them that recognition by granting that degree, as opposed to them going through a three to four-year program to demonstrate the same thing they already have.”
As an example of an already-implemented way of better recognizing previous experience, Campbell shares pointed to systems set up for technology education.
“Tech Ed is a really good example. Currently, if you come from the industry and you have so much experience within the industry plus training, you can get an equivalent diploma,” said Campbell.
“Some universities are converting that to a degree so that those individuals who transfer from a previous profession and to the teaching profession with both the B.Ed. after taking some of the B.Ed. program, but also recognizing that their industry experience and certifications are equivalent to a degree. So, having Tech-Ed teachers at a degree level, as opposed to a diploma level, and things like that. Some universities are already being creative in recognizing the expertise, and just having that could encourage people who are looking to work with kids, who enjoy that, who have a skill with that, and who perhaps want to change careers, make it much easier for them to do so.”
