Teacher hiring almost complete at Kamloops/Thompson School District

Oct 5, 2017 | 10:51 AM

KAMLOOPS — On World Teachers’ Day does the Kamloops-Thompson School District need to hire more teachers?

According to Robert Koopmans, communications manager for the district, hiring is almost complete.

“We’ve made around 90 new hires since January,” he told CFJC Today. “We need to make a couple more. We’re in the last stages in hiring for specialty positions like French immersion and for some positions in the district’s outlying areas.”

Laurel MacPherson, first vice-president of the Kamloops Thompson Teachers’ Association, says hiring challenges aren’t unique to our school district.

“It’s all across the province. So, we’re just working together with the school district in order to ensure that classes are covered and that there are teachers to fill in when regular teachers are off sick.”

She’s also quite optimistic that the district’s substitute teachers list (TTOC list) is big enough.

“The TTOC list is quite large and we do hope that we won’t have the shortages that we had last year and so far it’s looking better than it did last year so we’re optimistic it will continue on that way.”