The shortage of teachers is so great that the largest school service center in Quebec has taken the extraordinary decision to “close groups” of the elementary school and to distribute the students to other classes.
According to what The duty learned, the Center de services scolaire de Montréal (CSSDM) announced this “exceptional measure” in an internal email, at the end of the day on Wednesday. The news sent shockwaves through the staff of the service centre, which is preparing to welcome more than 110,000 students (about 10% of the Quebec workforce).
“In this new school year, despite our constant recruitment efforts, several tenured teaching positions have not been filled. In this context, and for the sake of [servir] our students as best we can, we are, in some cases, required to close groups, ”the message reads.
“We know that these decisions are not taken smoothly and that this exceptional measure upsets the school organization”, adds the email sent by the general management of the CSSDM.
Neighborhood meetings for the formation of primary school classes are to take place on Friday. The service center indicates that the “priority remains to allow all students to integrate a group that has all the educational and complementary services to meet their specific needs”.
This exercise is part of the “back-to-school adjustments”, said Alain Perron, spokesperson for the CSSDM, on Wednesday evening. He was unable to indicate how many teachers are missing on the eve of the return to class. Nor could he reveal the number of groups to be closed.
Back to school is always a complex logistical exercise for school administrators — the final number of students is unpredictable due to moves and new arrivals — but staffing shortages are adding a challenge on an unprecedented scale, our sources say . To prevent children from ending up in a class without a teacher, the authorities will distribute the students from the groups that will be “closed” to other classes at the same level in the same school.
Staff on the lookout
The number of students in these groups will increase, which will increase the level of difficulty for teachers, deplores Catherine Beauvais St-Pierre, president of the Alliance of teachers and teachers of Montreal. Students will suffer because they will get less attention from their teacher.
“It just doesn’t look good. It is inconceivable. We are coming out of a pandemic, we have students who have accumulated delays, which must be taken care of, but the resources are dwindling, ”she said.
Remedial teachers and other professionals will no doubt be deployed in classes that would otherwise be without teachers, which means that students in difficulty, who need extra help to succeed, will be left on their own, indignant Catherine Beauvais St-Pierre. Non-legally qualified teachers called in as reinforcements also require supervision from experienced teachers in each school.
“We may have a lot of calls tomorrow [jeudi]. We have a lot of young teachers who resign either to give up the profession or to go work in another service centre. It’s an additional challenge to work in Montreal,” she adds.
Buildings in poor condition, young people from underprivileged neighborhoods with learning difficulties, and a large proportion of children whose mother tongue is other than French: the challenges are not lacking for teachers on the island of Montreal. The upcoming closure of half of the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel lanes, for work that will stretch until 2025, adds additional pressure for CSSDM staff members who live off the island.
Protect students
“It is certain that the lack of qualified teachers will disrupt teaching, we cannot deny it. This creates a lot of insecurity among the staff. The youngest teacher in the school will find himself tossed around with group changes. Maybe he won’t go to the school he wanted, ”explains Kathleen Legault, president of the Montreal Association of School Principals.
The service center and the school principals will do everything possible to “find solutions and reassure the staff, parents and children”, despite the shortage affecting several categories of employees, she underlines. In addition to teachers, there is a lack of daycare workers, specialized educators, remedial teachers, speech therapists and other types of workers, especially secretaries.
The good news is that elementary students usually don’t know which group they’ll be in when they show up at school on the first day of school, explains Kathleen Legault. They are unaware of the game of musical chairs that leads to the formation of groups.
However, it is likely that substitutes will take turns in front of a large number of classes during the first days of the school year – or more, in some cases. “It’s far from ideal for elementary students, who need a bond with their teacher to develop a sense of security. When there is staff instability, it weakens that, ”adds Kathleen Legault.
” Although we [ayons] preferred it to be otherwise, know that all CSSDM teams are combining their efforts to recruit all the personnel necessary for the proper functioning and achievement of our mission, argues the internal message broadcast Wednesday at the school service center . Our recruitment process is intensive and the profile of positions to be filled is changing daily and improving hour by hour. »