Northern Manitoba school division offering financial incentives to attract teachers

A northern Manitoba school division is offering financial incentives, including $10,000 payments, to attract new teachers.

The Frontier School Division, which covers most schools in Northern Manitoba, has been short 20 educators all year, with nearly half of its teaching staff over the age of 50.

The division is experiencing difficulty attracting new teachers, especially those trained out of the province. This is because when out-of-province teachers come to Manitoba often their work experience and training isn’t fully recognized.

“We’ve had a number of teachers leave Manitoba simply because they weren’t getting paid as much as they had been before,” said Reg Klassen, chief superintendent, of the Frontier School Division.

The school division and the Frontier Teachers' Association have now signed two memorandums of agreement to make it more appealing for teachers to come work for them.

“We’re desperate,” Klassen said.

One of the new incentives is a promise to match a certified teacher’s salary to what it was before they came to Manitoba.

The other is an offer to give any new bachelor of education graduate $10,000 payments for a full year of work. Those who graduated in 2021 are eligible to get the payment for one year; those who graduated in 2022 can receive it for up to two years; and those who graduated in 2023 are eligible to receive it for three years.

Klassen said the division has money set aside to accommodate these incentives.

“We know that retirements are coming, and we need to be in a position where we can replace those people who have served us for a long time,” Klassen said.

Klassen said they rolled out a different incentive program last year, but it didn’t attract enough people.

The division will re-evaluate the incentive program in the winter to decide if it will continue.

Klassen noted that people are hesitant to come work in remote communities, but it can be a great experience and can provide a wealth of experience and knowledge.

“Once they get there, they find that they’ve got great students, a wonderful community and it’s a great experience,” he said.