Teacher shortages are leaving educators with no 'good options' — and they say students are paying the price

Amid a worsening teacher shortage, filling staffing holes is a daily balancing act for many school administrators — with consequences that are felt in the classrooms. 

An elementary principal, for instance, might have to decide "whether they cancel subjects like music or phys ed; whether they combine a Grade 3 class with a Grade 4 class," says longtime Toronto principal Ralph Nigro. Or they may have to cancel teachers' prep time, which is when they communicate with parents, mark assignments, prepare material for lessons, and carry out many more duties that support their work in the classroom. 

"None of these are good options, but they're all options that have to be considered on a daily basis," said Nigro, who is president of the Ontario Principals' Council.

Canada's teacher shortage isn't a new phenomenon, but educators say it's now hitting a crisis level across the country. Certain stopgap measures employed in the first few years of the pandemic — for instance, hiring staffers without formal education training, or leaning more heavily on retired teachers — are popping up again, but experts say this is a multi-faceted problem that requires more sustainable solutions.

Canada has suffered for years from shortages of teachers and other educational staffers, such as educational assistants and resource teachers, but the impact has varied across the country. Rural and remote areas, for instance, have long struggled with the problem. 

The precarious employment of many newly graduated teachers — leading them to string together daily supply-teaching gigs or short-term contracts for years at a time — has also contributed to a high rate of teacher attrition: more than 30 per cent in the first five years in the profession, said Nathalie Reid, an education researcher at the University of Regina. 

However, COVID-19 made everything even worse.

The pandemic drove myriad senior classroom teachers to leave the profession early, and kept others home sick. Their retired colleagues, "who in the past might have come back to substitute teach two or three times a week," made different choices, Reid said.

"They weren't putting themselves at risk and coming into classrooms where COVID had been present, which is why the classroom teacher was out."

The pandemic forced education systems into less-than-ideal options to mitigate staff shortages, from shuttering special education offerings to hiring adults without educator training to monitor classrooms. Some of these measures are short-term fixes that might at least get an adult into the room to mind students on a daily basis, but they aren't real, sustainable solutions, Nigro said.

Instead, he says longer-term efforts are needed to attract new, trained teachers and keep them in the profession. Without them, ongoing staff shortages will continue to chip away at school routines, negatively impacting students and leading to further issues in classrooms, Nigro said.

"Young people need routine," he said. "They need adults — the same adults in front of them on a daily basis — to build those trusting relationships. 

"We [are seeing] changes in behaviour in some cases. Our school leaders across the province are complaining that they're seeing some gaps in learning ... because of ongoing shortages. And what we are noticing in particular that is very concerning is that the staff shortages are having a disproportionate impact on students with special needs."

When it comes to educating new teachers, Nigro suggests Ontario's two-year teacher training could again be done in a single year. He'd also like to see flexibility in how that education happens, noting that part-time, evening, weekend and online studies would better accommodate potential new teachers working in other sectors.