The new school year has just started in Mesa, Arizona, and Westwood High School is running out of math teachers.
Westwood, a public school with more than 3,000 students in the populous desert city east of Phoenix, still has three open positions in the subject. Principal Christopher Gilmore has never started a year there with so many math positions open.
“I am a little apprehensive,” he said.
With free or discounted lunches available to most students, Westwood is one of many public schools across the nation to open with fewer teachers than they’d hoped. According to a national survey conducted by Education Week, nearly three-fourths of her principals and district staff say there are not enough applicants for teaching positions this summer. Other research released this year suggests that parents are deeply concerned about staffing and that more teachers are looking to retire.
But while the pandemic has led to urgent searches for teachers in some areas, not all school districts are suffering from shortages. The need for teachers is driven by the complex interplay of supply and demand in a tight job market. Both salary and location are important. Suburban schools with higher salaries are usually able to attract more applicants.
If anything, the turmoil of the recent pandemic is expected to exacerbate old inequalities, experts say.
“This is complicated and predates the pandemic,” said Desiree Carver-Thomas, an analyst at the Learning Policy Institute. “Schools that host large numbers of students of color or from low-income families often bear the brunt of teacher shortages.”
For years it has also been particularly difficult to find teachers for subjects such as math and special education, or to fill spots in rural schools. Nearly 80 percent of public school teachers were white, according to federal data collected during the 2018 school year. Most of their students were not.
In Arizona, where starting teacher salaries are lower than the national average, the shortage is “severe” across the board, said Justin Wing, a human resources assistant at Mesa Public Schools, the district where Gilmore works. .
“It’s probably been that way for at least a decade,” said Wing, who is also an analyst with the Arizona Association of School Personnel Administrators. But this year it seems to be worse, he added.
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He believes low wages are part of the problem, with school districts in neighboring states such as Texas and Nevada advertising teacher salaries on social media and on billboards along highways in Arizona. I’ve seen people rub salt into their wounds.
According to Wing’s data last year, nearly four-fifths of teaching positions in Arizona schools (measured in full-time equivalents) had to be covered in less-than-ideal ways. For example, by support staff. , or teachers in training.
Also, nearly a third of the positions remained completely vacant, often forcing existing teachers to pick up more classes.
Tequila Brownie, CEO of TNTP, said the challenge for struggling school districts is not just to fill seats, but to cover positions in a way that helps students. A non-profit organization that provides consulting services to school districts regarding staffing and student performance.
“Now everyone is frankly just talking about warm bodies,” she said. I can not do it.”
Over the past two years, several states, including New Mexico, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, have tried to address or pre-empt shortages by raising teacher salaries.
Some countries have relaxed certification requirements. In Arizona, a new law makes it easier for aspiring teachers without a bachelor’s degree to gain work experience in the classroom. In Florida, where state officials reported more than 4,000 teacher vacancies last year, some veterans can obtain temporary teaching licenses.
And in some rural areas where pay raises are out of reach, school officials put a full day of classes on the chopping board.
Missouri has the lowest average teacher salary in the country, and John Downes, superintendent of the rural Hallsville School District, said the pool of qualified applicants has all but dried up in recent years. A few days before the start of the new semester, the positions in Speech Language Pathology and Mathematics were still vacant.
This year, Hallsville schools are trying to attract educators with a four-day work week. “We are competing with wealthier neighborhoods that can offer more favorable salary and benefit packages,” said Downes. “So we decided we needed to think outside the box.”
Hallsville is not alone. In Missouri, his 25% of all districts will be on his four-day schedule this fall. Condensed weeks are common in New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Idaho and South Dakota, and are starting to appear in other states such as Texas.
Even before the pandemic, the number of four-day model schools increased from 257 in 1999 to more than 1,600 in 2019, according to national data compiled by Paul Thompson, an associate professor of economics at Oregon State University. Did.
Kate Wright, a parent of two children in elementary and middle school, said she hopes Hallsville’s new schedule will attract strong applicants. “It’s kind of hard for a teacher to want to take a pay cut and drive to Hallsville.”
It remains unclear how the 4-day model (longer school days, shorter weeks) affects learning. While children and families may benefit from the flexibility of a three-day workweek, some research suggests that a significant reduction in the total number of class hours may result in lower student performance. Suggested.
Hallsville third-grade teacher Shauna Woods said educators are looking forward to Mondays off. In anticipation of this change, she said: Next year will be better. ”
Kim A. Anderson, executive director of the National Education Association, said shortages are a concern in many districts, but it’s not all bad news.
“We are actually making progress on the educator shortage,” she said, citing increased funding from districts and the American Relief Plan passed by Congress in March 2021 to help turn the tide. I added that there are
In Virginia, where starting teacher salaries tend to be higher than the national average, Prince William County Public Schools, one of the state’s largest school districts, offers over $53,000 to new teachers with a bachelor’s degree. Teachers with experience and graduate degrees can earn tens of thousands more.
Lisa Harris, an algebra teacher at the district’s Patriot High School in Knoxville, said that in her 22 years of teaching, she never wanted to quit the profession. I see you,” she said. “It sounds national.
In fact, many schools in Prince William County have found just the opposite. This year, which began on August 22nd, the school district has created hundreds of new positions for teachers and his teaching assistants compared to last year.
Throughout the year, administrators keep an eye on potential applicants, especially those with qualifications in mathematics, science, special education, and multilingual education.
“It’s a joke between us who work in human resources,” said Michel Colbert, who works in the district’s human resources department. “It’s like going to a college fair and he sees one math candidate and everyone in the room is going for that candidate.”
In fact, in some school districts, teacher vacancies can be attributed not only to job turnover, but also to the creation of new jobs, said Richard Ingersoll, an educational staffing expert at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. I’m here.
That can skew perceptions of shortages, especially in the context of long-term trends. and has been increasing for about ten years. According to Dr. Ingersoll’s research, the number of teachers is growing faster than the number of students. (It may continue. Student enrollment has dipped during the pandemic, and it may continue to decline for years to come due to changing demographics.)
But in chronically low-wage communities, the pandemic will only exacerbate teachers’ feelings of underrepresentation, said Brent Maddin, who heads the Next Generation Education Workforce Initiative for Teachers in New York. Arizona State University. “If we are serious about recruiting and staying in the profession, we need to pay attention to working conditions, in addition to compensation and such,” he said.
As the fall semester begins, principals like Mesa’s Gilmore are focused not only on filling vacant positions, but also on retaining the educators they have. We were able to hire three math teachers, 23 of whom are already there, introducing students to the basics of algebra, geometry and trigonometry.
Gilmore is also working with Dr. Madin at Arizona State University to implement a teaching model in which educators with different skills work together to teach a larger group of students. According to Gilmore, the program will allow student-teachers (potential future applicants) to gain experience in the school, and will also help experienced educators feel less isolated in the classroom. There is a possibility.
“I think the pandemic has just brought fatigue to an already stressful area,” Gilmore said. “And if we can restore the joy of teaching, our students will have the joy of learning.”