By Spencer Sterritt

Addition of staff expected to bolster current Nanaimo school programs

Jan 24, 2017 | 4:29 PM

NANAIMO — Thanks to a Supreme Court of Canada decision, the Nanaimo-Ladysmith Public School District will hire more staff to support learning in their schools.

School district superintendent John Blain said 23 new full-time employees will be in schools as teacher’s aides and extra counsellors.

“All the schools are receiving a portion of the funding and all the schools will be making some additions or subtle shifts and changes to support students and learning.”

Nearly $1.2 million in funding will pay for the positions. It comes after a lengthy contract dispute between the BC Teachers’ Federation and the provincial government, the end result being $50 million for all public school districts in the province.

“When you start to divide it out to the different schools it doesn’t come out to an awful lot but we don’t turn staffing away or extra funds away from anything,” Blain said. “Any extra funds we can direct into our classrooms is always very important.”

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None of the new staff will take over classrooms or new classes and programs. Blain said they want to add the teachers with as little disruption as possible and will use the additional help to bolster their current programs.

For example, he said there may be more teacher-directed reading groups in classrooms, where as before students would be directing themselves.

“Hopefully it can put out some of the larger issues schools have,” he said.

Second semester begins in February and Blain said they hope to have all new staff at the schools by then.

spencer.sterritt@islandradio.bc.ca

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit