“All good things must come to an end”, and thus it is for the oft maligned summer break enjoyed by those who work in the public school system. For many educators, August is a month of Sunday nights, where the Monday morning that is September is never very far from our thoughts.
This school year promises, as have so many in recent memory, to be rife with writeable content. So, as the dog days of summer wind down into the kaleidoscope of colour that is autumn in the Maritimes, here are my predictions of what will be the top three educational issues that will set the tone for our public education system this year.
Cell phone ban will come with growing pains.
Front of mind for many teachers right across our region are the new cell-phone policies adopted by all three Maritime Provinces. Although differing slightly in fine print details, the governments of PEI, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have all determined that cell phones use needs to be limited during instructional time. This action mirrors a series of policy changes that have rapidly spread across Canada, with Ontario, BC and Alberta set to launch similar restrictions this year. Quebec has led the way on this portfolio, implementing its own cell phone ban early in 2024.
As one of the thousands of education workers who spends the day repeating the phrase “Put your phone away” the policy change seems long overdue. It is not, however, policy makers who will be enforcing the rules. The responsibility of the day to day monitoring of use, the creation of in-class procedures, the policing of such things as phone caddies, the inevitable phone calls home, will all fall on in-school staff.
Interestingly, none of the polices say that students under a certain age should not be in possession of cell phones, nor that phones are not permitted on school grounds, both of which would have seen parents included in a shared responsibility for curbing the cell-phone epidemic.
As with every policy, effectiveness will only go as far as the success of implementation, and in many cases, the nuances of enforcement have been left to the schools. There will undoubtedly be some severe growing pains as staff, students and parents navigate this new “cellfree” reality.
Addressing violence in schools a priority
This particular issue has been catching a great many headlines in the past few years, and deservedly so. In July, PEI Teachers Federation president Andy Doran spoke with Saltwire News, stating that violent incidents were on the rise in Island classrooms. Back in October of 2023, a New Brunswick Teachers Association survey revealed that nearly half of all teachers had experienced verbal or physical violence on the job. In Nova Scotia, a similar survey from the Nova Scotia Teachers Union revealed that 55% of teachers and education specialists had personally experienced a violent incident or a threat.
A high profile stabbing of two staff members at a Nova Scotia high school undoubtedly contributed to Nova Scotia Auditor General Kim Adair looking deeper into the issue. The findings from that effort were indeed grim. Over the previous seven years, reports of violent incidents in schools had increased by 60%. Adair ultimately concluded that “educators in schools in Nova Scotia are at high risk of experiencing violence in the workplace.”
Adair did not mince words when assigning blame. She accused the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development of having an inadequate focus on “addressing and preventing” violence in schools. For her part, Education Minister Becky Druhan claimed that work was already well underway, and that there was already a “significant focus” on tackling the issue.
These reassurances seem to be doing little to in the way of instilling confidence. In fact, CUPE Nova Scotia, which represents several groups of educational workers, is currently in the midst of a campaign which decries government for inaction on the issue. Reducing incidents of violence in schools will undoubtedly continue to be a major focus of educational discourse over the coming months.
Retention and Recruitment Woes.
As far as challenges facing the education sector, the retention of current educational staff and the recruitment of new workers remains among the most pressing. As of last May, the New Brunswick Teachers Association was predicting that province would be short approximately 500 teachers come September. During its recent contract negotiations with the Tim Houston Tories, the NSTU placed a great deal of emphasis on the teacher shortage being experienced in Nova Scotia. The story is the same in PEI, where concerns are being raised about teaching staff available for this coming school year.
One of the major issues facing efforts to keep schools sufficiently staffed revolves around government’s insistence that recruitment is the answer, as opposed to retention. Certainly, this has been a focus in New Brunswick, where the government recently announced it was spending well over half a million dollars on a teacher recruitment strategy to address staffing shortfalls. What is perhaps most ironic in that particular case is that not long after this funding announcement, New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs stated publicly that he would be worried if he had to send his own children to public schools.
It is this type of tone-deafness to which politicians often seem oblivious and is analogous to Jeff Bezos saying he would not shop Amazon. Higgs’ comments certainly send a fairly strong message about his faith in a system for which he, as Premier, is ultimately responsible. When New Brunswick parents sit down with their own children and discuss possible career paths, having Higgs slam the education sector in his own province undoubtedly does little to increase its allure to would-be workers. It also does little to reassure those individuals already working in classrooms that their efforts are valued, causing many, I am sure, to look for greener employment pastures.
Summer’s lease, it must be acknowledged, does indeed have all too short a date, and soon, educational staff of all stripes will be back in class, dealing with new policies, classroom violence, and staffing shortages.
I wish all my educational colleagues a restful last few weeks of summer.
It appears that come September, we are going to need it.
frostededucation 