Substitute shortage a strain on Nova Scotia teachers, union says

A shortage of substitute teachers is causing disruption within schools and hurting morale, according to the Nova Scotia Teachers Union, but efforts are being made to address the problem.

"There's definitely been been a shortage for the last few years," Dayna Enguehard, the union's Cape Breton District Local president said Wednesday, noting it's a similar situation throughout the province and across the country.

"On any given day, depending on how many teachers are out in the board, you could have various schools that they can't get subs for their school."

When that happens, other teachers in the school are often called on to fill in, she said, giving up time normally used to prep for their own classes.

"Someone told me there had been one school where there was four teachers off and no subs. So I think the administrator was in, and then they had the guidance person in, and they had the resource teacher in. Because they have to cover, you can't leave a classroom of kids with no teacher."

Bad for morale

Enguehard said the result is teachers feel guilty about taking sick days because they worry their colleague will have to cover for them.

The source of the problem in Cape Breton, she said, is linked to declining enrolments, which meant local school boards weren't hiring teachers for several years.

That led to a glut of substitutes, many of whom got frustrated and took other jobs, or moved away. And with fewer job opportunities, fewer students pursued education degrees.

Then over the past few years, with teacher retirements and the creation of new positions, many substitutes have been hired on full-time, further depleting the remaining substitute pool, she said.

The Cape Breton Victoria Regional Centre for Education has hired approximately 100 substitutes into regular positions over the past few years, reducing the available substitute pool to about 200-300 teachers, spokesperson Michelle MacLeod said in a statement.

About 1,000 teachers have been hired provincewide since 2016, according to the Department of Education, many of them former substitutes.

One solution to the substitute issue has been to call retired teachers back into the classroom. A recent change to the teachers pension plan has increased the number of days per year retirees are allowed to teach from 70 to 100, effective this school year and next.

The province has also attended job fairs to recruit teachers from other jurisdictions, changed teacher certification regulations to make it easier for teachers from other places to teach here, and established two part-time bachelor of education programs.

An upswing in enrolments to education programs bodes well for the future.

"We're actually seeing a re-interest in bachelor of education programs," said Jane Lewis, chair of the education department at Cape Breton University.

Once again, students are reacting to the job market, causing the pendulum to swing the other direction, she said.

"For a while, all of our programs in the province were not fully subscribed. This year it's my understanding that we're all oversubscribed," she said. "And again I think that's directly related to students knowing now and feeling confident that there's going to be employment for them at the end of their bachelor of education programs."

To help meet that demand, CBU is now talking with the province about increasing the number of seats in its education program from the current 40.

"We feel with teacher shortages in the province apparent now, that this is a good time, we hope, to be having that discussion," said Lewis.