It's been a busy hiring season for the Garden Valley School Division.
    
Superintendent Dan Ward says the hiring season usually starts early, beginning in February, and carries on around this time of year regarding the bulk of their hiring.

"In February and March, we get a sense not only of our needs based on retirements and folks that are moving on, but we also look at our student enrollment projections and base our hiring on that," said Ward. "We are projecting a fairly modest, but still an increase for the next school year of around 2%. So that will be reflected in our teacher hires."

The best example is probably at Northlands Parkway Collegiate, where they're seeing some decent growth in terms of enrollment.

Based on some growth, staff movement within schools, and retirements, Ward says they had just over sixty positions to fill from the start of their hiring season.

Ward says the process has gone very well, noting only about ten positions are left to fill. "Those (final positions) came up a little later on because of some movement, so we're working hard to get those final positions filled."

"Our Assistant Superintendent of Student Services Joanne Derksen is retiring, and we've hired Cindy Hamilton to take on that role in the fall. That, of course, created a vacancy. We hired Jordan James, current (WES) VP as principal there, which created another vacancy. So you can see how this creates a bit of a domino effect, but opportunities for leadership in the division," said Ward. 

Ward said hiring sixty teachers, plus additional support staff is a tall order. He commended the division's school leaders, including the principals, vice-principals, and HR department, who he said have been working hard to ensure they have a full complement of teachers for the fall of 2024.