Consultations conducted by the Official Opposition with local school board representatives have revealed that recruitment is a major issue as Northern Lights School Division prepares for the coming school year. With just weeks to go until classes resume, there are twice as many vacant teaching positions within the division as there would be in a typical year.
“The students in the North deserve the same thing as everywhere else in Saskatchewan,” said Leroy Laliberte, Saskatchewan NDP Athabasca MLA and Shadow Minister for First Nations and Métis Relations.
“We need more teachers and what we’ve heard loud and clear is that housing is a major barrier to recruiting them to work in the North. We are told that on several occasions, the division was successful at recruiting teachers to accept a job, only to have them change their minds when they could not find housing.”
Matt Love, Saskatchewan NDP Education Shadow Minister, said school boards across the province have been forced to do more with less year after year. He said the impact of those cuts is particularly devastating in the remote North.
“The Sask. Party has had 18 years to properly support teachers and students — instead, education in our province is last in the country,” Love said. “We need to ensure housing is available and accessible for teachers wanting to head North to teach students.
“We need an emergency plan to address the teacher shortage and house teachers in the North. This is a real, tangible initiative the Sask. Party could take to support students before classes resume.”
Jordan McPhail, Saskatchewan NDP Cumberland MLA and Northern Affairs Shadow Minister, said the lack of supports specifically provided to schools in the North reinforces ongoing feelings that the Sask. Party has abandoned people.
“Families up here have been through so much,” he said. “The wildfire crisis that destroyed homes and businesses and forced terrifying evacuations, the skyrocketing price of food, the lack of available healthcare in an emergency.
“We need a government that’s focused on building a bright future for the North and what better place to start that work than in the schools where our children learn.”
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