Bridgeport schools face staffing crisis
“I know that my staff has expressed that feeling of being overworked and just anxious about how we can meet the needs of our students. We love Bridgeport.”
BRIDGEPORT — Bridgeport schools have been open for more than a month, but key positions throughout the system remain vacant as the city faces dire shortages.
“This year, it’s been rather unprecedented,” said Laura Rivera, the director of speech, language, hearing and occupational therapy services for Bridgeport Public Schools.
Four positions were vacant in her department as of a week ago, which, she said, “ultimately will impact the services that are mandated for our students.”
In total, Bridgeport has close to 70 vacancies
Laura Rivera, director of speech, language, hearing and occupational therapy services for Bridgeport Public Schools
throughout the district, human resources reported
mid-week. Many of those are among teachers, including 16 in special education, and support staff such as speech and language pathologists, school psychologists and school nurses. The district received yet another resignation on Tuesday.
Teacher shortages with specific expertise are ongoing in Connecticut, but reached crisis mode in some districts this fall. For reference, 250 teaching positions were vacant statewide a month into the 2014-15 school year, per a state report.
Officials said the shortage could in part be explained by low pay, workplace conditions and career pipelines. Other reasons could be tied to COVID-19: physical and mental health concerns, childcare needs during quarantines and transportation challenges, and increased demand for new positions funded by COVID relief.
But those closest to the crisis predict it won’t solve itself when the pandemic ends. For her department, Rivera said there’s not enough interest or seats in the limited master’s programs in Connecticut, and some speech and language pathologists who could’ve pursued education are going into the clinical sector instead.
“I have heard there’s a lot of burnout,” said Rivera. “I know that my staff has expressed that feeling of being overworked and just anxious about how we can meet the needs of our students. We love Bridgeport.”
A revolving door
“It’s become more and more evident that we are going to continue to lose educators,” Michael Testani, the Bridgeport superintendent of schools, told the school board recently.
A sign of that loss: About 40 percent of Bridgeport teachers are in their first six years of the profession, according to the district, which suggests many veteran educators leave the Park City or profession.
District leaders place a sizable share of the blame on Bridgeport’s struggle to pay competitive wages. “We lost a significant number of folks to other districts simply because of economics,” said Testani.
Bridgeport schools could receive more than $150 million in three rounds of federal COVID relief funds, but school finance experts advise against using those dollars to cover salaries, warning of a fiscal cliff when that money expires.
“This is more than a matter of funding the school district adequately,” Testani said. “There needs to be a solution not only here in Bridgeport and the other urban towns, but also the rural towns that are being pillaged by the suburbans who are able to be more competitive in their salary and benefits packages.”
Statewide analyses have suggested the same. Last school year, an education department staffing report concluded “Connecticut has a distributional problem.”
“The demand for more teachers, for certain specialization, and for increasing diversity in the teacher workforce is concentrated in a few urban, high-poverty districts,” often in the areas of special education, math, science and languages, the report stated.
That became apparent when schools reopened this year, as some districts ran up against drastic staffing shortages, while wealthier cities and towns — such as Greenwich, Stamford and New Canaan — weathered the storm.
Testani said Bridgeport has an average of a $10,000 difference in teacher pay across the salary schedule.
“There are so many people who left the profession or for other towns,” said Ana Batista, the president of the Bridgeport teachers union. “Bridgeport, until they start increasing salaries, will continue to struggle.”
Batista cited other districts offering higher salaries and even signing bonuses: “In reality, during times like this, you might have spouses not working, that extra money is helpful.”
The starting salary for a teacher with a master’s degree in Norwalk was $55,917 in 2018-19, the most recent posted data. That educator’s salary in Fairfield or Stratford approaches $55,000 for the 2021-22 school year, per union contracts.
The same teacher in Bridgeport could make $46,880 this school year, according to the local union’s contract. And the discrepancy compounds: an employee with a higher salary will get a larger pension in retirement.
Batista suggested districts poaching Bridgeport talent in statewide shortage areas, like bilingual teachers, is par for the course. But this year is unusual.
“I’m seeing them take teachers who normally would not be in such high demand,” she said, and gave the example of elementary school teachers.
Apart from pay, differences in school district expenditures indicate educators may not have the resources they need to feel successful at their jobs.
Of all the state’s school districts, Bridgeport consistently spends among the lowest per pupil: $14,718 in the 2019-20 school year, a
Hearst analysis of state data revealed. Similarly sized New Haven and Hartford paid $16,929 and $17,496 that year, respectively; Norwalk and Stamford paid close to $19,000.
Former Bridgeport superintendent Fran Rabinowitz, the executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, recalled hiring and training newly certified teachers — only to lose them to neighboring districts.
“I had southern Connecticut superintendents that would say to me ‘thank you for training your teachers,’” she said. “They would move on to other school districts... with easier working conditions, fewer students in the class and more studentsupport services.”
Seeking a solution
Testani said he enlisted the state for help, but so far “there has been no solution offered.”
The state education department did not respond to a request for progress updates or possible solutions. The state does offer incentives like loan forgiveness and mortgage assistance for teachers in designated shortage areas, but those encouragements have failed so far to solve the problem.
The superintendent said he reached out to receptive government officials with a few ideas, including $10,000 direct payments to teachers to cover the average-pay discrepancies, and ways to recruit paraprofessionals, coaches and other school staff into teaching.
“There are some constraints as to how we can be creative in trying to fill these vacancies — at least with a certified teacher, rather than a revolving door of substitutes,” Testani told the school board.
Research has shown that faced with significant educator turnover, student learning stalls, said Suzanne Wilson, a professor of teacher education at UConn.
Wilson said to not only attract teachers, but to retain them too, district officials need to think about a “package deal” that supports teachers financially and in other elements of their careers. Those components can include social support and positive relationships with leadership and other teachers; time and material resources so teachers can thrive at their jobs; and an embracing of the aspects of a district that make it special.
“The people who go into teaching are not going in because of the financial rewards,” she said. “You have to have all these other things lined up in order for those incentives to make lasting change.”
Rivera, the speech, language, hearing and occupational therapy director, is also looking for solutions to fill her non-teaching staff. She said she could hire assistants, but they require supervision by licensed and certified speech and language pathologists. She also considered tele-practitioners, who can be located anywhere in the United States, to respond to current caseloads.
The stakes are particularly high this school year, as her staff must fire on all cylinders to make up for lost learning time in school buildings since the pandemic began.
“There are certainly more hours that need to be met because of what we sustained last year,” Rivera said.
Meanwhile, Bridgeport officials and department heads say they will continue to search for short and longterm solutions until the schools are properly staffed.
“There’s no stone that we haven’t tried to unturn to make sure we have highquality folks in front of our kids,” Testani said.