The President of Prince George District Teachers Association, Daryl Beauregard, has stated that teachers often leave the teaching profession or the district to seek teaching opportunities elsewhere.
He said: “I’m going to focus on what the chronically understaffed conditions of our schools do for staff retention because they kind of play into each other. It has become harder for teachers to meet the ever-complex needs of today’s student population.”
He said the severe understaffing means teachers sometimes go weeks or months without having any prep time.
He said: “I was told last week that there are teachers at a school who are crying in a bathroom because they can’t cope but they are still showing up from work.
“At the end of the day, the first response is ‘I won’t let my students down, I don’t want to let my colleagues down, I don’t want to let my school down’ and so they continue to work until there’s such time they can’t work anymore because their health has deteriorated.”
He said he recently talked someone out of resigning and he was told that the district’s HR department also talked another person out of resigning.
He said: “It’s a time of increased workload, it’s a time where there is lots of challenges to morale of staff in this district. There’s also an intense competition to retain and recruit the staff we do have.”
Paula Bass, the president of CUPE 3742, a union which represents school support workers, held similar view about retention.
She said: “In CUPE there is more of a need of retention rather than recruit.
“I’ve looked through my membership logs for a few months and can see the school district is struggling to retain CUPE members but is actively recruiting.”
At June ending, there were approximately 940 CUPE staff working for SD57.
They were 908 in September as 53 members had resigned and six had retired but the district added 28 new staff. In October, they gained seven members but 10 members were lost as seven resigned and three retired. They gained 24 in November but 7 resigned and there was one retirement.
Bass said: “So right now, we are sitting at about 920 members which is still less than the 940 we had in June. This means we had over 65 resignations from June until now. That’s not includinge retirements.
“Retirement is inevitable, but we are losing staff for so many other reasons.”
She said they are losing staff due to lack of support from social workers and teacher counsellors as well as inadequate youth care workers, or Indigenous Education workers to work with students in crisis.
She said: “This leaves everyone scrambling to give proper supports to the students who need them. It is imperative these roles are filled because students suffer, and staff cannot keep up.”
