By Tim Petruk – Kamloops This Week
There will be challenges, she admits, but Alison Sidow’s confidence in her district’s staff is unwavering headed into the 2017-2018 school year.
The superintendent of the Kamloops-Thompson school district told KTW parents have nothing to worry about, despite space crunches on both sides of the river and a potential teacher shortage that has the union thinking worst-case scenario.
“It’s not unusual for our staff to deal with challenges as they arise,” Sidow said on the eve of her second full year as superintendent.
“While there are issues we will address, I’m still very excited. Parents can feel very confident they’re sending their children to schools and classrooms where the learning will be rich.”
Meghan Wade, chair of the board of education for the district, is equally optimistic, though her cries for capital cash somewhat belie the rosy picture.
“All our ducks are in a row,” she said. “We are ready like we are every year. Our projects are done for the summer, our renovations, our portables.”
Portable work over the summer was extensive and expensive. Eight new units were installed at a cost of about $130,000 apiece — about $1 million all told — bringing the total number of portables in use in the district close to 40.
There are more portables on the grounds of SD73 schools than ever before. Eight are outside Valleyview secondary. Westmount elementary has five portables, representing about a third of its classrooms, Wade said.
The portable proliferation, she said, points to the district’s need for capital cash.
“We have pressure all across the south shore and Westmount, and some of our rural areas,” Wade said. “We need capital.”
Though not ideal, Sidow said portables are fine for learning.
“A portable is still a classroom,” she said. “It has all the technology and amenities one would expect. Many teachers prefer working in portables.
“Is it ideal? No. Would we prefer to have new capital funding? Yes. But does it harm students? No.”
One thing that could be harmful to students, according to the head of the Kamloops-Thompson Teachers’ Association, is a lack of educators.
Amanda Jensen told KTW the district is short 70 teachers after hiring much of its teacher-on-call list.
“We’re still in a position where we’re filling the last few jobs,” she said. “The district is doing it as quickly as possible, but it does take time.
“I hope that it doesn’t mean that there are classrooms that don’t have a teacher on Tuesday. That would be the worst-case scenario. It would mean some principals are going to be teaching classes.”
Sidow said that won’t happen.
“We won’t have principals in front of students,” she said. “We are accepting all students. There is a provincial concern with the number of teachers.
“We have a very strong HR department to make sure we hire the very best.”
Sidow said there are a number of potential remedies if some schools are short teachers, including having more than one teacher in a classroom or paying a teacher to take an oversized class.