Teacher-librarian Stephanie Vande Kraats has seen the equity of her credentials take a big jump in recent months.
Since November, when a Supreme Court of Canada ruling restored specialist-teacher ratios to B.C. teachers’ collective agreement, the market for her skill set has pretty much flipped.
“This is only through June,” she said of her current short-term contract at Burnaby South Secondary, “but I interviewed at four districts, and I turned down two positions, and I was expecting a third offer, which is nuts because it used to be that specialists like teacher-librarians were the first ones to be cut. It was like duplication to have an extra teacher in the room.”
With the ratification last week of a deal between B.C. teachers and the province last week, things look to get even more nuts for teacher-librarians over the coming year.
Vande Kraats, who came to Burnaby South in January after 13 years at a Surrey independent school, is one of about 43 new full-time teachers the school district has hired since the province announced in January it was releasing $50 million to hire about 1,100 teachers provincewide before the end of the school year.
The government called the move “a first step” toward restoring class sizes, class composition and specialist-teacher ratios that existed before 2002, when the government took away teachers’ ability to bargain those elements in their contract.
In a second step last week, teachers and local school boards ratified a deal that will see those provisions fully restored in time for next year’s hiring.
Because reconfiguring or dividing classes to reduce class sizes halfway through this school year would have been disruptive, the hiring since January has focused on specialist or non-enrolling teachers: teacher-librarians, like Vande Kraats, as well as counsellors and English language, learning assistance and special education teachers.
Before 2002, school districts were required to have a minimum of one teacher librarian per 702 students in the district. Since 2002, there has been no mandatory ratio, and many school districts have replaced teacher-librarians with less costly library technicians or simply cut library time to help balance their budgets.
Between 2002 and 2016, the B.C. Teacher-Librarians’ Association estimates the province’s public schools lost nearly 360 full-time teacher-librarian positions.
“They’re going to have to hire a whole bunch of teacher-librarians now,” Burnaby Teachers’ Association president Frank Bonvino told the NOW.
Burnaby won’t be in quite as big a hole as some other districts, like neighbouring Coquitlam, when it comes time to restore the 2002 ratio, he said.
“Burnaby’s actually been generally quite good in the sense that the numbers that we have in Burnaby are not too far off of the district specialist-teacher ratios,” he said.
School District No. 41 has been proactive in retaining qualified teacher-librarians, according to district teacher-librarian Patricia Finlay.
“Teacher-librarians were identified as an ‘area of need’ several years ago,” she told the NOW.
Burnaby is also more particular than most other districts when it comes to its teacher-librarians credentials, requiring a diploma in education in teacher-librarianship.
For Vande Kraats, that has made for a professionally fulfilling time at South.
“Coming into a temporary job is no one’s ideal,” she said, “but this particular position is unique since I’m working with another teacher-librarian. When did that ever happen? So, even if I don’t receive the continuing contract here, this is six months of professional development for me because I’ve never had the opportunity to bounce ideas off and work with another colleague at the same level at the same time.”
Before their contract was stripped, Burnaby teachers also had provisions in their local contract that stipulated no elementary teacher-librarian position could be less than half-time, and they could not be used to cover other teachers’ prep time.
Like other so-called “superior local provisions,” those elements of the contract will now be reinstated under the new agreement in time for hiring season after spring break.
This story originally stated Vande Kraats had worked at a Surrey independent school for seven years. She had, in fact, worked at the school for 13 years, seven as a teacher-librarian.
