In a bid to try and get more teachers into the region, the Gold Trail School District is offering cash incentives to people who choose to work in Ashcroft, Lillooet, and Lytton.

Superintendent Teresa Downs says the district has partnered with Sun Country Community Futures to offer $10,000 to teachers who choose Ashcroft or Lillooet, and $15,000 to teachers who move to Lytton.

“They recognized that we were 25 teachers short this school year and that that was having an impact and offered to do a welcome to our community incentive for Ashcroft, Lytton, and Lillooet where we were seeing teacher shortages,” Downs told NL News.

“They are actually offering the incentive to new teachers coming to our district and we could not be more appreciative.”

Intended to support a new teacher to spend the whole year with SD74 – and potentially longer – Downs says the money will be dispersed in three instalments during the  2023-24 school year. It is open to any and all teachers – kindergarten to Grade 12 as well as inclusion specialists and teacher counselors – looking to work in SD74.

“We find great teachers are great teachers at any age and we can make it work,” Downs said, noting SD74 will also help cover moving costs for teachers that choose to live in one of those communities.

She notes that while the Gold Trail School District has always had issues with teacher recruitment and retention, things have been especially dire over the last five years.

“I do think there is a lure to the big city and a lot of people right now can get their first teaching jobs in larger centres and don’t necessarily come rural to start their careers,” Downs said.

“Like many of us, we start our careers in rural communities and stay there forever, and so we’re hopeful this incentive will get people here to start and hopefully stay a little bit longer.”

Downs says while the incentives are for the next school year, SD74 will work with any teachers who want to work in the district this school year.

“We’ll offer them a continuing contract and that would apply to next year, so we would be happy to welcome them aboard as well,” she said.