Teacher shortage requires innovative solutions
Let’s face it, Jefferson Township Local Schools has been subjected to a lot of negative press recently.
Most of it criticizes our district for its inability to attract and retain qualified teachers. Disregarding the many student success stories in recent years, the focus has been on a struggle unique to such a small school district — where even a daily shortage of one or two teachers can have substantial implications for classroom instruction. We could be distracted by the people and ideologies injecting themselves into and exacerbating our staffing efforts, or we could look for innovative solutions that could have a broader impact on our community as a whole.
Teacher shortages are not unique to our school district. It is happening across the state and across the nation. Also not unique to Jefferson Township is the fact that our best and brightest are choosing not only to leave the community, but also to leave Ohio for better opportunities. These are challenges that we all must address head-on.
One of our success stories is the College Credit Plus (CCP) program in which high school students are graduating high school with associate degrees and, soon, even with bachelor degrees. These are our highest-achieving students, being educated right here in our district, but leaving for greener pastures upon graduation. We simply are not doing enough to encourage those students to stay in the community, and we are not doing enough to encourage them to enter the teaching profession. That must change!
Our district is developing a Teacher Academy modeled off programs already underway in states like Hawaii, where the teacher retention rate is worse than Ohio. This program will encourage and offer incentives for CCP students to enter the teaching profession. It will give students hands-on experience in the classroom and help them develop ties to our school community. Those ties, along with the local experience these students already have, will result in future teachers who are more invested and better able to connect with future students. But, we must do more if we want the program graduates to stay here.
There are other teaching programs available at the local career centers, but our goal is to keep students in our district and incentivize them to teach here when they graduate. That will require new thinking by the community, our students and our teachers, including their union. Our plan is to look at ways to cover the full cost of educating program participants, through the master’s degree level, when they commit to teach in our district for a certain period of time. We also must consider teacher compensation systems that include the goals of this program.
Our district is going to work with surrounding colleges, local community and business leaders, legislators, alumni and current teachers’ union to make this idea a reality.