The Vancouver School Board is heading east to recruitment fairs across the country, mostly in Ontario.

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – We’re almost four months into the school year but Vancouver is still struggling to find and attract teachers.

The Vancouver School Board is now heading cross country once again to attract applicants at recruitment fairs, mostly in Ontario.

Glen Hansman, president of the BC Teachers’ Federation, says searching for staff east of the Rockies is a good thing.

“The fact is we actually don’t have enough teachers in this province currently to fill all the positions.”

The number of vacancies fluctuates as some teachers resign or others retire. But Hansman says the district’s overly restrictive approach to hiring is one of many challenges.

“You have good, qualified, certified people that are being passed up in Vancouver and are being hired in neighbouring school districts and are being successful.”

He says one issue is that teachers come to Vancouver and are often blind-sided by the fact they’ll be paid less than if they were working in neighbouring districts. Hansman believes an easy fix as a first step would be changing the pay scale and how to determine where one falls into it.

“(We hear) lots of stories of teachers who applied for and accepted jobs in Vancouver that have ended up returning to their former school district because they’re not being paid the same amount of money. Or people who have accepted better job offers in neighbouring school districts.”

According to the Vancouver School Board, nearly 200 teachers have resigned since the spring, mostly to take jobs in other districts. 119 teachers have retired since the end of June, which is higher than the previous annual average of about 80.

As of this week, there are 51 full and part time vacancies in the Vancouver School District. The most difficult teaching positions to fill are in French Immersion, special education, math, sciences, counselling, technical studies and Mandarin.

In a statement, David Nelson with the Board says VSB recruitment teams are travelling to Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan to recruit new teachers.

“We’re now able to provide moving allowances to out-of-province teacher candidates,” says Nelson. “And we’re working with employee groups to identify homestays for out-of-province hires to make it easier for them to have a place to stay while settling in to Vancouver.”