Grande Prairie elementary school faces staffing shortages, urges parents to keep children home
An elementary school in the County of Grande Prairie is grappling with staff shortages, prompting school officials to issue a notice to parents asking them to keep their children home today.
In a letter addressed to parents on Wednesday, Whispering Ridge Community School, along with the Peace Wapiti Public School Division, requested parents, who were able to do so, to keep their children from attending school due to staff absences and the inability to fill the absences with on-call staff.
"It is incredibly challenging operating our school without the necessary teaching and support staff," read the letter.
Alberta Health Services declared a respiratory illness outbreak at Whispering Ridge Community School on Dec. 13.
The threshold for declaring an outbreak is 10 per cent absenteeism or higher, said AHS in statement to CBC News. Whispering Ridge Community School is experiencing a student absentee rate greater than 15 per cent.
If sick staff don't report to work, staff absences would far exceed the student absentee percentage, said Bob Stewart, Peace Wapiti Public School Division superintendent.
Whispering Ridge Community School has been unable to fill teacher and support staff absences for some time, but the school saw a dramatic increase in absences this week, which prompted the request to parents.
"While the school does have full-time additional staff specifically in place to fill in for absent staff, this, along with on-call staff, does not meet the current need, and each day there have been several classrooms that have not had a certificated teacher or supervisor," Stewart said in a statement to CBC News.
'It's not uncommon for us to be short multiple teachers'
According to Stewart, many staff have been reporting to work sick because no substitute teachers or on-call staff are available to fill their positions.
"This appears to be a trend where school staff will often report to work unwell when they cannot find a replacement and is likely due to feelings of guilt because if they didn't show up their colleagues would be impacted," he said.
The school's principal, Abby Stilwell, took to her personal Facebook to address the morning scramble the school's administration faces every day to identify how many staff they'll be short and then plan for how to piece together coverage.
"It's not uncommon for us to be short multiple teachers and educational assistants on any given day (with no subs available)," Stilwell said in the post.
Growing class sizes, strained workforce
NDP education critic Rakhi Pancholi says the surge in respiratory illnesses and the shortage of teachers and educational assistants across the province are hitting schools hard.
"We're seeing ballooning class sizes and a really strained workforce who are also incredibly tired, incredibly burnt out," Pancholi said.
Alberta NDP MLA Rakhi Pancholi said the Alberta government should restore public reporting of class sizes. (CBC News)
To get a handle on the situation province-wide, Pancholi said the Alberta government should restore public reporting of class sizes and appoint a commission to set new class size and complexity standards.
"We want that transparency because if it is important to inform a new funding model," she said.
"We need to have the political will from our government to go back and and make a commitment that every single Alberta student will be funded adequately and get the supports they need."
Amanda Chapman, the NDP critic for children with disabilities, tabled a private member's bill in the legislature last month proposing to restore a requirement for school authorities to report their class sizes and compositions to the province.
The United Conservative Party government ended a class-by-class headcount requirement in 2019.
