Montreal | More and more teachers are leaving

More and more teachers are dropping out in Montreal: on the island, teacher resignations have increased markedly by 53% in three years, and a thousand of them have left their school. It’s that in times of shortage, teachers have the luxury of choosing where they want to work.

Marie-Eve Morasse
The Press

If they were 259 to have resigned in 2019-2020, this number climbed to 397 in 2021-2022. At the only school service center in Montreal (CSSDM), 103 teachers have resigned since 1^er last July. A number that includes permanent professors, but also those who had part-time positions and substitutes.

Catherine Fortin made the leap at the end of the last school year to settle with her family in Sainte-Adèle, in the Laurentians.

“It was work that kept me in Montreal, I was in a wonderful school,” says Ms.^me Fortin, who taught for five years in Montreal. Mother of two young children, she would have liked to have a schedule of four days a week, which her employer did not allow her.

At the Montreal Association of School Principals (AMDES), we note that many schools have recently had to deal with one or two resignations of teachers.

“One of the particularities of Montreal is that many of its teachers do not live on the island,” said AMDES president Kathleen Legault. When it was announced that work in the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel would continue until 2025, for example, “we had a lot of resignations in the east of the island”, illustrates M^me Legault.

The three school service centers in Montreal explain that the main reason given by their teachers for resigning is a move. Where are they going ? Are they staying in Montreal or are they leaving the region altogether? Impossible to know.

At the Pointe-de-l’Île school service center, where about fifty teachers leave each year, it is explained that “several resignations are linked to the geographical context and to a market of employees where it is now possible to obtain a job near his home.

Departures among young and old

Only the CSSDM provided us with data on the seniority of resigning professors. Since 2019, nearly 50% of them had less than five years of seniority.

Young teachers, says the president of the Alliance of Teachers of Montreal, Catherine Beauvais-St-Pierre, observe what is happening in the school service centers around Montreal where their friends work.

Montreal, for a teacher, is “dilapidated schools, lack of services, shortage of professionals, multi-ethnic classes, children who do not speak French”, lists M^me Beauvais-St-Pierre.

“It may be that a teacher who starts teaching says to himself: ayoye, it’s difficult”, she continues.

It is no less serious when it is experienced teachers who desert the schools of Montreal, observes Kathleen Legault, of AMDES. “It’s a loss of expertise,” she says.

“There are specific challenges to working in the Montreal environment, and we rely on experienced staff to welcome newcomers, whether they are qualified or not,” recalls Ms.^me Legault.

Multiple reasons

Regardless of the school service centre, the main reason given by teachers who resign is that of a change of city or region.

The desire for a better work-family balance, obtaining a promotion, dissatisfaction with working conditions, a career change or a return to studies are also among the reasons cited by teachers who leave.

“Contrary to popular myth in education, very few teachers at the Marguerite-Bourgeoys school service center leave the education sector following a resignation,” says Chrystine Loriaux, spokesperson for this service centre.

Catherine Fortin did not leave teaching, but the reasons that led her to leave Montreal were multiple. There was work-family balance, yes, but also the exorbitant prices of housing in the city. She bought a house in the Laurentians.

“We would have liked to become owners in Montreal that it would not have been possible”, notes M^me Fort.

Nevertheless, she says, it was in Montreal that her dream of teaching in an alternative school came true. “I can’t believe that they didn’t manage to keep me,” the teacher is surprised.