A former president of the NLTA says the same issues with recruitment and retention of teachers that he faced as a union leader appear to be getting worse.

NDP Leader Jim Dinn was responding to ongoing concerns that led to the recent resignation of the principal at Peacock Elementary in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

Dinn says the school is short a “significant” number of teachers including three classroom teachers, IRTs, a school counsellor and now the school’s administrator.

Dinn told VOCM Open Line with Brian Callahan he’s been in contact with parents of students at the school and has a copy of the letter sent to families from Superintendent Terry Hall.

“He notes here that ‘we have proactively redeployed our existing teaching resources within the school.'” Dinn calls it an attempt to downplay the effect, “but what that means is that teachers within the school have had their workload increased…. all this…without a solution, is just going to increase the burnout.”

He believes the principal’s resignation was a decision that was not taken lightly.