Francophone district launches campaign to snag more teachers

A shortage of French-speaking teachers has forced the Francophone South School District to launch a major recruitment campaign this week.

Monique Boudreau, superintendent in the Francophone South School District,is hoping the campaign will attract new teachers to the district.

Over the past five years, the districthas seen up to 1,500 new students an average of300 to 400 students a year.

"There's a myth that there's no jobs in education." she said. "We've never had too many teachers in our organization."

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The campaign was launched at cole L'Odysse in Moncton on Tuesday and is expected to run in April and May.

Boudreau said the district is looking for both permanent contract teachers and supply teacher. It has atotal of 50 permanent contract positions.

Most of the teachers working in the school district are graduates of the University of Moncton.

The campaign will consist of district teachers travelling across the district's high schools to talk about the teaching profession.

"We know it'll take five [or] six years before they graduate but that's where we really want to go," she said.

"We didn't want to wait until we were in a real mess and don't have anywhere else to go."

French immersion teachers needed

But it's not just the Francophone South School District looking for French-speaking teachers.

The Anglophone East School District is desperately looking to hire 40 full-time French immersion teachers for the next school year because so many students have enrolled in the early-entry program.

"We're both pulling on the same pool of teachers," she said.

More than half the Grade 1 students in Anglophone Eastenrolled in the new program, GreggIngersoll, the district's superintendent said last month.

But Boudreau argues teaching immersion in an English district is not the same as teaching in a French one.

"In immersion you teach in French but your environment will be in English," she said. "In our district your environment will be in French."

Although the campaign is reaching out to potential teachers in New Brunswick, the district is also open to seeking teachers from outside the province and around the world.

"We want to [reach out] to them and say 'Hey,you want to come back to New Brunswick? There are jobs here in education,'" she said.

"If they want to come back home we have jobs waiting for them."