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Board copes with teacher exodus / Ruling causes teachers to jump ship
01/31/1999
Page 1,3
By Declan Finucane
Staff
With unprecedented numbers of disgruntled Catholic high school teachers in the region resigning in January - and many of the remaining instructors' morale eroded - students will be hardest hit, union officials say.
However, Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board officials contend the proverbial sky is not falling, and that the system's 26,000 secondary school pupils will continue to receive top quality education from qualified teachers.
Brock Commeford, president of the Dufferin-Peel Secondary Unit of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association (OECTA), said as of Friday 82 secondary teachers had left their Mississauga and Brampton high schools for greener pastures since Jan.12 - many grabbing jobs at the Peel District School Board.
Board figures show 54 high school teacher resignations have been turned in since last September, 44 of those since Jan. 1. The Board may not yet have received official notice from all instructors, which may account for the discrepancy in the figures. The number of resignation is growing daily, Commeford added, and the spirits of many of the Board's 1,500 high school teachers are dwindling just as quickly.
The Dufferin-Peel instructors are seeking better working conditions elsewhere after a Jan. 12 ruling by a provincial arbitrator imposed a new contract that increases teachers' workloads. Commeford said teachers have never fled the system in such large numbers, between first and second semester, in the past.
"We have teachers with anywhere between one and 21 years of experience leaving, telling us they have to go somewhere else because this employer lacks the vision necessary to allow quality education to be delivered to the people who really matter - the students," said Commeford. "It's a pretty sad testimony. The Board can put any spin it wants on it, but the bottom line is that this is not happening at any other board in Ontario ... this Board has the third worst working conditions and therefore learning conditions in the entire province of Ontario."
Tom Wright, who teaches at Lorne Parke Secondary School -- in the Peel District School Board - said 16 former Dufferin-Peel teachers applied for one position at his school alone in the recent weeks.
"Two weeks ago, we were scraping the barrel (looking for teachers), and then all of a sudden we have this flood in a very short time. It's amazing," said Wright.
One Dufferin-Peel high school teacher, who has taught in the system for 20 years, said she is completely disappointed in the system," and is actively pursuing a job elsewhere.
Vince Nichilo, the Board's superintendent of human resources, said officials there are concerned with the recent resignations and conceded that some of the exiting teachers have voiced their displeasure with working conditions in Dufferin-Peel.
However, he strongly defended the Board's commitment to delivering top-caliber education to students and said ongoing, aggressive teacher recruitment campaigns will ensure that qualified instructors are always on board. Nichilo said while the Board has lost 54 high school teachers this year, 24 new qualified instructors have already been hired to help offset the losses, and others with similar qualifications continue to apply to Dufferin-Peel.
"I don't know if 54 of 1,500 teachers (leaving) is a mass exodus," said Nichilo, downplaying the severity of the situation. "We have teachers resigning and retiring on a year-round basis and we have always dealt with it. Granted, this is a situation that causes us more concern, but we'll deal with in effectively as we have in the past ... we're in the midst of an aggressive recruitment campaign to ensure there are certified teachers in every classroom come September."
Nichilo noted that about half of the teachers who have resigned did so to work for school boards closer to their homes.
Commeford wasn't buying that explanation.
"We have teachers here who have been driving in from Hamilton and other areas for 20 years, and it has never been an issue for them before. Now, it is," he said.