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London Catholic board out to fill 600 jobs amid 'perfect storm' of labour needs

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The London District Catholic school board, its enrolment booming, is looking to hire 600 employees, half of them teachers.

Most of the new hires will be casual, but up to 300 substitute teachers are needed amid a surge in students that’s adding the equivalent of up to one new elementary school a year to the board that serves London and Middlesex, Elgin and Oxford counties.

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“For many years, there wasn’t an abundance of new full-time jobs,” Vince Romeo, the board’s education director, said Tuesday. “We now have opportunities that haven’t existed for nearly a decade.”

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This is a great time for job-hunters, where part-time work can soon become full time, Romeo said.

“We think it is the perfect time to work in a school board,” he said, adding the new employment reality is that many occasional staff could be working full-time within a year.

“We could have them start immediately,” he said.

The London District Catholic board has 3,000 employees, and is the fifth-largest employer in the region, Romeo said.

Ballooning enrolment – it has grown from 19,000 to 23,000 students during the last five years, due to migration from the Greater Toronto Area and immigration – is one of several factors putting pressure on the board’s workforce, he said.

Combine that with the switch to a two-year teachers’ degree program in Ontario, double the time it took to train new teachers before, and increasing retirements, and there’s “a perfect storm” driving the need for more staff, Romeo said.

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“Outside of teachers (and principals), no one needs to be Catholic to work at the Catholic school board,” he said.

Applicants being sought by the board cover the waterfront in education, from teachers and educational assistants in the classroom, to custodians and secretaries and even a handful of school principals and vice-principals.

There’s also opportunity for full-time work for French and music teachers, Romeo said.

The positions are available across the board’s coverage region, including in St. Thomas, Strathroy-Caradoc and Woodstock.

Teachers come from as far away as Windsor, Hamilton and the Toronto area, Romeo said.

The Thames Valley District school board says it, too, has accelerated the hiring of occasional teachers after many were hired into permanent jobs for about 60 new classes created amid unexpected enrolment growth.

The Thames Valley board also uses student teachers as occasional teachers for French-language programming when needed, said Linda Nicholls, the board’s human resources superintendent.

The London District Catholic board is holding an open house for interested job-seekers Nov. 16., from to 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., at the board office at 5200 Wellington Rd. South in London.


POSITIONS AVAILABLE

The London District Catholic school board needs to fill the following positions:
300: Occasional teachers
100: Casual educational assistants
75: Temporary classroom support personnel (emergency supply)
25: Casual early childhood educators
10 to 20 each: Casual custodians, librarians, secretaries, chaplaincy leaders, noon-hour assistants
5 to 10: School principals and vice-principals

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