Updated February 5, 2024.
At Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington (PVNC) Catholic District School Board, we are committed to building and sustaining a faith-filled, inclusive and equitable working and learning environment for all staff and students.
To support the Ensuring Equity and Valuing Relationships strategic priorities of the Board’s Multi-Year Strategic Plan, PVNC Catholic launched its first comprehensive identity-based staff census in November 2022. This work was informed by Ontario’s Education Equity Action Plan.
Purpose
We sincerely thank all PVNC Catholic staff who took time to complete the PVNC Catholic Staff Census. Your voice is so crucial to our goals.
For those staff members who did not feel comfortable participating in the staff census, we hope to build your trust as we use this data and build towards our next staff census in the future.
This data has given us a clearer picture of some of the obstacles and challenges facing our staff members for a variety of reasons including age, race, gender identity and accessibility.
The results from the staff survey have deepened PVNC Catholic’s commitment to creating inclusive work environments. The findings enable the Board to:
- better understand employees’ experiences based on varying levels of intersectional identities that may otherwise be hidden
- identify barriers and gaps to opportunities, services and underlying concerns that impact belonging
- develop actionable steps toward creating inclusive work environments and practices
- inform system policies, procedures, and programs and support institutional accountability
Results
Participants were asked a series of questions regarding their perceptions about inclusion at the Board. This was done to better understand how employees experience PVNC Catholic culture as it relates to parity in visibility, respect, support, and access for equity-seeking services in the workplace.
The overall purpose of these questions was to gain a better understanding of the demographic makeup of the Board.
Quick facts about the PVNC Catholic Census
- 1,331 respondents took part in the census, which represent about 61% of all board employees and 73% of permanent employees
- Of those respondents, 54% were educators, 36% were support staff, 4% were principals or vice-principals and 3% were non aligned, non union employees
- All questions were optional
- The average respondent took 14 minutes to complete the survey
- The Board received 1,200 answers to open responses
Key Findings
The results of PVNC Catholic’s inaugural workforce census provide significant insight into staff composition and the workplace climate, particularly as it relates to perceived barriers to employment. For the purpose of this report, barriers to employment refers to formal or informal policies or practices that result in the restriction or exclusion of staff, particularly marginalized members, on factors not related to job requirements. These policies or practices can be physical, economic, financial, informational and/or organizational.
Key findings of the demographic questions include:
- Permanent employees were much more likely to respond to the survey than casual employees
- The median age of respondents is approximately 45 years old, and there is a steep drop off in the number of employees in the 55 and older age groups compared to the younger than 55 age groups
- Approximately one-third of respondents plan to retire within the next 10 years
- Almost three-quarters of respondents identify as cis-women, a proportion consistent with the composition of PVNC Catholic employees
- The question “What is your sexual orientation?” had the highest percentage of people responding “I prefer not to answer” (11%) while the second highest in the demographic questions was “What is your religion?” (8%)
- Nearly two-thirds of respondents are married, a proportion much higher than seen in the 2021 Census data for Ontario which is less than 50%
- In terms of Religion, 83% of employees are Christian with the majority of them being Catholic
- PVNC Catholic employees communicate in a wide variety of languages with 34 different languages reported, English and French being the most common
- PVNC Catholic employees reported 36 different ethnic or cultural origins with Canadian, Irish, English and Scottish being selected most often
Key findings of the perceptions of employment barriers questions include:
- Knowledge / experience not valued came out as a theme in a variety of areas such as age (for both younger and older employees), years of experience (especially for those early in their careers) and for those who said they had a disability
- There were several areas where people said they had to hide their identities: having a disability, having a sexual orientation other than heterosexual, being non-Catholic and having a marital status of common law or divorced
- There was a perception that having certain identities limits job and leadership opportunities, especially being non-Catholic, having a sexual orientation other than heterosexual and having a marital status of common law or divorced
Next Steps
As we build on the success of the 2022 staff survey, we will:
- Use the data from the staff census, student census and school climate surveys to inform the Board’s Equity Action Plan, which will undergo a consultation process in the fall of 2023 and be finalized by December 2023.
- Identify areas for improvement and allocate resources accordingly.
- Continue the development of Black employee affinity groups and initiate Indigenous employees affinity groups.
- Create opportunities to intentionally and purposefully foster and listen to Black and Indigenous student voices.
- Develop a workforce that is inclusive, diverse and reflective of the communities we serve through recruitment, hiring and promotion processes.