P.E.I. spending $1.7M to pay for 34 new frontline roles this school year

P.E.I. will spend an additional $1.7 million to pay for 34 new frontline positions in Island schools this coming school year.

The province said Tuesday in a release the temporary positions will support "academic achievement, social-emotional learning, and class composition due to complex student needs."

All the roles have been filled. They include itinerant teachers, kindergarten teachers, school counsellors, resource teachers, behaviour resource teachers, youth service workers, educational assistants and one speech language pathologist.

Education Minister Natalie Jameson said the investments are needed to address the impacts the pandemic has had on the academic performance of Island students.

"We know that there are more students that are not meeting expectations, but we also know that learning can be accelerated with more instruction," she said. "So we're going to focus more time on core learning and essential outcomes."

The transitional curriculum addressing the learning impacts of the pandemic will continue this year.

The itinerant teachers will help students who aren't meeting reading and writing levels in the English system, and focus on oral language development in the primary grades for the French system.

The new roles are in addition to 40 permanent positions for which the government allocated $2 million in the last provincial budget.

The positions are just for the 2022-2023 school year, although they will be reassessed at a later date.