More than a quarter of Ontario’s schools experience teacher shortages every day, and nearly half experience daily shortages for educational assistants. According to one Northern Ontario secondary school principal, “We are holding on by a thread and we are hiring warm bodies, not the best for the job, just someone to fill a job.” 

New results from People for Education’s 2023-24 Annual Ontario School Survey show staff shortages are an issue across the province. The data are based on responses from 1,030 of Ontario’s publicly funded schools, representing all regions of the province and 70 of Ontario’s 72 school boards.   

We are not staffed properly to support students.  We can only respond to emergencies and not do the actual work of supporting students.  It’s sad to watch all of the work we have done over the years fall apart because we don’t have staff with time to maintain it.    Elementary principal, Central Ontario

Shortages in Ontario most extreme in secondary schools 

Staffing has become the NUMBER 1 area of stress and concern for school administrators.  We have absences that we cannot fill daily, and we have to use unqualified people to fill the vacancies.  The impact is massive and is most certainly contributing to the learning gaps and learning environments in our schools.    Elementary principal, GTA

The 2023-24 Annual Ontario School Survey asked principals how often they had experienced staff shortages for teachers, educational assistants, administrative and office staff, and custodians.  Among the results: 

• 24% of elementary and 35% of secondary schools report facing daily shortages in teaching staff. Only 4% of elementary and 6% of secondary schools report never experiencing teaching staff shortages.  
• 42% of elementary and 46% of secondary schools report facing daily shortages in educational support staff (e.g., educational assistants).  
• 18% of elementary and 28% of secondary schools report experiencing shortages in office staff daily or weekly. 
• 25% of elementary and 38% of secondary schools report experiencing shortages in administrative staff (e.g. vice-principals) at least once a month. 

Principals raise concerns about using unqualified staff 

It’s very challenging to have qualified staff in northern Ontario. Nearly all vacancies are filled by unqualified staff. Principal has had to cover classes this year.   Elementary Principal, Northern Ontario

In their comments in the survey, principals report that because of staffing shortages it has become increasingly common to employ unqualified individuals to cover the absences, and they raised concerns about the impact this was having on students’ learning.

One principal said that the school’s “most vulnerable diverse learners are often left with unqualified and uncertified community members,” while another principal pointed out that “daily staff shortages decrease student support in Special Education and ESL, as it is usually those teachers who have to cover absent classroom teachers.” 

Shortage of educational assistants has an impact on student learning and school safety 

Lack of supply coverage for support staff and teaching is creating unsafe learning and working environments regularly in our schools.    Elementary Principal, Central Ontario

In the 2023-24 survey, nearly half of all schools reported experiencing daily shortages of educational assistants. These staff provide support to students with special education needs, either in regular classrooms or in special education classes.  

Ontario’s policy and resource guide for  special education lists four areas of responsibility for educational assistants: 

• helping the student with learning activities, under the direction and supervision of the teacher; 
• assisting with providing appropriate accommodations as described in the student’s Individual Education Plan (IEP); 
• monitoring and recording the student’s achievements and progress relative to the expectations described in the IEP, under the direction and supervision of the teacher; and 
• maintaining ongoing communication with the student’s teacher(s). 

According to Statistics Canada, the median hourly wage for educational assistants in Ontario is $24.00. Principals say that this relatively low salary is one of the reasons that it is difficult to maintain vital educational assistants in their classrooms, which results in students going without needed supports, and, at times, has an impact on school safety when there is no one in the classroom to provide assistance to students struggling with behavioural issues or acting violently.  

This year, more than half of secondary school principals (58%) and nearly two-thirds (63%) of elementary principals report that they have had to ask parents to keep their child with special needs home for the day. This is an increase over previous years. Concerns about safety and unavailable supports were the main reasons given for asking that a special education student not attend school for all or part of the day.  

While nearly all schools report having assistants, the proportion of elementary schools with at least one full-time educational assistant dropped from 87% in 2021-22, to 83% this year. 

Staff shortages an issue across Canada and internationally 

While People for Education’s results are from Ontario schools, they reflect the situation in provinces and territories across Canada and internationally.  

At the start of the 2023/24 school year, Quebec’s Minister of Education reported that the province was missing more than 8,000 teachers. He admitted that this would mean that “a lot of unqualified teachers” would be supervising classrooms. In Vancouver this fall, more than 1,300 teacher absences were left unfilled according to an open letter from Vancouver teachers. And a new study from the University of New Brunswick is warning of shortages looming in New Brunswick.  The situation is even more extreme in Northern First Nations. According to Gakinaamaage – Teach for Canada, 43% of the Northern First Nations that they work with report having classrooms with no teachers.  

UNESCO recently released a report raising concerns about a global teacher shortage. According to the report, “…serious teacher shortages persist in many countries around the world, and this is true across regions and within countries themselves.” The report points to a particular shortage of teachers in STEM subjects because often teacher candidates with expertise in science, technology, engineering and math can find much higher paying jobs in other sectors. The report also found that the attrition rate among primary teachers worldwide almost doubled between 2015 and 2022 – the authors suggest a number of causes including poor working conditions and strains on teacher well-being, low remuneration, and a lack of opportunities for career growth.  

Lack of training, unattractive working conditions and inadequate funding all undermine the teaching profession and aggravate the global learning crisis. UNESCO has always placed teachers at the heart of the fight for the right to inclusive and quality education. There is an urgent need to better recognise this profession on which the future of our children depends.    Audrey Azoulay, Director-General, UNESCO 

Across Canada, teachers and teachers’ federations have pointed to high levels of stress, large class sizes, lack of safety, and lack of support to address classroom complexity among the reasons for leaving the profession. 

Poor working conditions lie at the heart of the crisis. Untenable classroom sizes and complexity have only increased. Students with special needs lack adequate support and resources. Psychological and physical violence is statistically on the rise.    Canadian Teachers’ Federation, February 2024 

 Continued impact on principals’ job 

The increased/additional stress of scheduling our schools daily to maintain safety and provide continuity of programming is a constant drain on the wellbeing of principals.    Elementary Principal, Northern Ontario 

Many principals report that finding emergency staff on a daily basis has become a large component of their administrative workload, along with re-timetabling staff to ensure they get breaks and ensure there is supervision available at recess and lunch. Dealing with staff shortages and providing support for students and staff struggling with mental health issues are named as the key stressors in principals’ work. As a result, principals are increasingly concerned that they are unable to fulfill their role as lead educator in their schools.  

Conclusion and recommendations

More than 90% of Canadian students attend publicly funded schools. In Ontario, the proportion is even higher. Overall, Canadian students do well as compared to students in other countries based on scores on international tests. We are consistently in the top ten. But Canada, along with the rest of the world, has a serious problem that will have an impact on our social and economic futures.  

In Ontario, that problem is clearly reflected in the high rate of staff shortages. Staff in schools are referring to the problem as a crisis, and many of them feel that not enough attention is being paid to the issue. 

People for Education recommends that the provincial government: 

• Convene an Education Task Force – including representatives from teacher, principal, and education support staff associations, school board administrators, faculties of education, special education organizations, provincial policymakers, and students – to provide input on government policy before it is implemented, and to help design new policy and funding models to address a range of issues including staff shortages.
• Work with education partners to carefully examine the roles and responsibilities of educational assistants, and develop a plan that will: 
     – Adjust the per pupil allocations in the funding formula so that boards are provided with sufficient funding to ensure there are adequate numbers of educational assistants to support students with special needs and classroom teachers.
    – Provide funding for salary increases for educational assistants so that these jobs are competitive with other similar positions.
    – Clarify the job description for educational assistants and ensure that they are provided with time and compensation for professional development. 

• Work with principals’ councils to clarify the role of principals, understand more about the supports they need, and provide those supports so that principals can act as educational leaders rather than HR managers. 

METHODOLOGY

Findings from this report are based on 1,030 responses to People for Education’s 2023-24 Annual Ontario School Survey (AOSS) collected from principals across 70 of Ontario’s 72 publicly funded school boards. This represents 21% of the publicly funded schools in the province.

Unless cited from other sources, the statistics and quoted material in this report originate from People for Education’s 2023-24 AOSS, the 27^th annual survey of elementary schools, and the 23^rd annual survey of secondary schools in Ontario. Surveys from the 2023-24 AOSS were completed online via SurveyMonkey in both English and French in the fall of 2023. Survey responses were disaggregated to examine survey representation across provincial regions (see table below). Schools were sorted into geographical regions based on the first letter of their postal code. The GTA region includes schools with M postal codes as well as those with L postal codes located in GTA municipalities.

Qualitative data analysis was conducted using inductive analysis. Researchers read responses and coded emergent themes in each set of data (i.e., the responses to each of the survey’s open-ended questions). The quantitative analyses in this report are based on descriptive statistics. The primary objective of the descriptive analyses is to present numerical information in a format that is accessible to a broad public readership. All data were analyzed using SPSS statistical software. All calculations have been rounded to the nearest whole number and may not total 100% in displays of disaggregated categories. All survey responses and data are kept confidential and stored in conjunction with TriCouncil recommendations for the safeguarding of data.  For questions about the methodology used in this report, please contact the research team at PFE: [email protected].