Published August 20, 2024

Sarah Rennie – LJI reporter

With less than a week before the start of the new school year, the New Frontiers School Board (NFSB) has filled all its full-time teaching positions.

“We do have a few part-time teacher replacements that we have to fill, but nothing that will impact the homeroom teacher or a core teacher in a classroom,” says the NFSB director general, Mike Helm, who suggests the NFSB is in “really good shape” for the start of the school year.

This achievement sets the NFSB apart from many other school boards and school service centres across the province.

According to Education Minister Bernard Drainville, Quebec was still missing more than 5,700 teachers as of August 12, including 1,406 permanent or full-time positions. During an August 16 press conference, Drainville insisted that while the number is still high, it represents 2,800 fewer vacancies when compared with the same time last year.

Drainville said the total number of required teachers increased by 3,700 this year, as over 20,000 new students will enter the public education system this fall. The province is also juggling positions left vacant by retiring teachers and those who have left the profession or reduced their contracts to part-time.

The Education Ministry’s dashboard indicates there are 1,510 full-time positions to be filled in the Montérégie region. As of August 12, over 96 per cent of those available at the NFSB were filled, while around 91 per cent of vacancies within the Centre des Services Scolaire de la Vallée-des-Tisserands were filled. Information relating to open positions for support staff and education professionals was not available as of press time.

Helm says the recruitment team at the NFSB will focus on filling aid positions that have been created as well as additional staffing needs into the startup of the school year. “We are confident that we will be able to get all of those positions filled over the next couple of weeks,” he insists, noting all administrative positions are also in place.

Helm suggests there is good reason for optimism looking ahead to the start of the year. There are no pandemic concerns, and the negotiations taking place between the government and different union groups that eventually led to strikes last fall have been settled. “This year we will really be able to focus on teaching and learning and getting back to those key elements that we want to be focused on,” he explains.

Parents can visit the NFSB website (nfsb.qc.ca) over the next week for information on the first days of school for all grade levels, as well as transportation and other details to help ensure the transition back to the classroom is as smooth as possible for NFSB families.

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