Connie Keating is president of the New Brunswick Teachers' Association. Image: Submitted

There’s more normalcy in school classrooms with COVID-19 restrictions lifted this year.

But the president of the New Brunswick Teachers’ Association says they are still dealing with a shortage of teachers.

Connie Keating says their supply lists continue to dwindle, “Our Bachelor of Education students who graduated, they can travel anywhere in the country and get a position. Certainly, I would say a shortage continues, but it varies area to area.”

Keating adds there is a shortage of teachers for French as a second language and also in rural areas because not everyone is willing to move to smaller communities in the province, “Those can be K to 12 positions, Not everyone is willing to move to Northern New Brunswick or to Grand Manan so shortages would remain.”

She says recruitment has been a focus by the Department of Education over the last few years, but feels the Association and the province need to continue working together to come up with new hiring strategies, “We also need New Brunswick to be getting off the mark quicker in terms of hiring. A lot of times what I’m hearing from Bachelor of Education students is when they’re being approached or applying to districts, by the time the employer is getting back to them, they’ve already been scooped up by another jurisdiction.”

Keating adds they’ve also discussed the idea of offering incentives to teachers to move to more remote areas of the province and try to fill the shortages that way.