Quebec students are back in school this week, but where are the teachers?

Ready or not, school's back in — and this week, some school administrators are the ones still scrambling to kick off the new academic year.

French-language school boards across the province say they're dealing with a shortage of teachers.

At Socrates-Démosthène, a private elementary school in Montreal's Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce​ borough where classes began on Monday, the Grade 4 students still don't have a French teacher.

"I called one of our teachers who is retired and he said, 'No problem, I'll come and I'll stay as long as you need.' So we are very lucky to have him. I can't say that other schools probably get an answer like that," said Georgia Tsakalis, the principal.

Public schools are also struggling.

The Commission Scolaire de Montréal (CSDM), the largest French-language school board in the province, says it's short 50 teachers at the start of every school year.

"Every year we have more and more children. Just this summer there were 200 registrations a week," said CSDM Vice-President Marie-José Mastromonaco.

"We are building more schools and we need teachers. And all the other school boards also — we are all looking in the same pool for the same teachers."

The English-language Riverside School Board on Montreal's South Shore says it is looking to fill two teaching jobs immediately.

Jobs available outside Quebec

Tsakalis thinks one factor responsible for the shortage may be the high demand for French immersion teachers in the rest of Canada.

"If you are a master of the French language, I think you can really go anywhere."

The array of opportunities leaves candidates looking for positions with the most competitive salaries, benefits and a good work environment.

"It's not us saying anymore, 'You'd be lucky to work here," which I believe; this is a good environment," Tsakalis said. "But they are looking at me like, 'What can you offer?'"

Tsakalis said teachers' demanding workloads and relatively low salaries are also dissuading people from going into the profession in the first place.

She said she's had a teacher shortage every August for the last five years.

Mastromonaco said the CSDM plans to meet with universities to try to improve the image of teaching, in the hopes of getting more young people to choose it as a career.

With files from CBC's Arian Zarrinkoub