Yukon hiring 23 new teachers to help students struggling through pandemic

The Yukon government is hiring 23 new teachers to help deal with some of the effects of the pandemic on student learning.

Eleven of those teachers will help out in Whitehorse high schools where some students have been doing half-days of classroom learning this year. The other 12 teachers will work in elementary and rural schools.

The money is coming from the federal government's Safe Return to Class fund.

Ryan Sikkes, the assistant deputy minister of schools and student services with Yukon's Department of Education, says some students have had trouble adjusting over the past year.

"Certainly what we've been hearing from our elementary school colleagues and our rural school colleagues is the suspension of classes last spring, you know, there are still some lingering effects from that," he said.

"And so their desire was to have some additional teaching support, to provide some individualized attention to those students."

Sikkes said the new teachers at rural and elementary schools will serve as learning assistants or counsellors.

The territorial government suspended all in-class learning across Yukon last March. Students returned to class in the fall, but with changes — for example, older high school students in Whitehorse are now spending half their school hours outside the classroom.

Sikkes said some of those high school students have thrived with more independence, while others have had a harder time.

"It really did involve students having to take some extra responsibility in their learning," he said.

"And we knew right from the start that some students were going to embrace that and really enjoy and flourish in that environment, and there were going to be other students who were going to struggle."

The new teachers will act as support coaches for the high school students who are struggling. 

"So, helping with things like time management and organization and prioritizing tasks and helping to advocate for themselves or self-advocate when they need extra assistance," Sikkes said.

He said students will be able to go to those teachers for help, or the teachers might reach out to specific students who clearly need support.

The government says an additional $150,000 will go toward tutoring programs.

New hires will 'take a dent' out of supply of teachers on call

Sikkes said Wednesday that 16 or 17 of the new teachers had already been hired, and that most of them were already living and working in Yukon — some of them as teachers on call.

"As of last week, we had still 265 teachers registered on our call-out system for teachers on call. So, yes, this will take a dent out of that, but I wouldn't say a significant dent," he said.

Asked why the new teachers are being hired halfway through the current school year, Sikkes said it's taken time to figure out what students needed.

He points to his own family, and his three kids in the territory's school system.

"You know, my kids have excelled in ways that I didn't expect, and I've had to provide some support to them in ways that I didn't expect," he said.

"And so, too, with our system — we want to put the right resources in place at the right spots for the right reasons."