The Richmond school district, like many school districts, is struggling to recruit personnel, but they have hired two retired administrators to work full-time finding more teachers.
Since May, the school district has hired 28 educational assistants, 183 new teachers and rehired 25 retired teachers to bring up their teaching staff numbers, as well as 51 CUPE workers, according to the school district’s assistant superintendent Scott Robinson. He gave an update to the board of education on Dec. 12 at their last meeting of the year.
“Recruitment and interviewing is an ongoing, perpetual process here in Richmond – it doesn’t just stop and start, it’s continually happening,” Robinson said. Two retired administrators have been hired to recruit and hire teachers, he added.
Some of the specialized teachers that are hard to find are those who teach high school French, French immersion, music - counsellors and learning resource teachers are also hard to recruit. Robinson added that it is “extremely challenging” to find home economics and tech education teachers.
The school district hosts an educational assistant training program, and of those who graduated in November, three-quarters stayed in district – a new program will be starting in February.
Robinson said the cost of living in Richmond and the Metro Vancouver is one of the factors making it harder to recruit staff.
Two years ago, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the B.C. provincial government had to restore previous levels of staffing, class size and levels of support for special-needs students.
