Recruiting & training new city teachers

The city Education Department is expanding programs to train and recruit new teachers after slashing them to the bone during the pandemic.

The revival comes as the city welcomes a historically large budget flush with new state and federal cash, and as officials prepare to expand in-person learning in the fall.

The New York City Teaching Fellows program, which offers new teachers compressed training and waives traditional certification requirements, will grow to 900 this fall after being cut down to 75 last year. The program included 825 new teachers in 2019.

Also, a program that trains paraprofessionals to become certified classroom teachers will grow from 25 participants this year to 300 next year. And a new program will train 25 substitute teachers — who played a crucial staffing role in the hybrid in-person/remote system — to become permanent teachers in District 75 schools for students with complex disabilities. All in all, about 1,250 new teachers are expected to enter the city teaching force nextf fall through “pipeline” programs, up from 500 last year. Another 800 are expected to join the teaching force in the 202223 school year.

About three-quarters of those hired through the programs are typically people of color — a much higher percentage than the teaching force at large — Education Department officials say, and almost three-quarters of them go on to work with students with disabilities.

Staffing was one of the major hurdles to reopening in-person learning in September 2020, with city officials scrambling to hire thousands of additional teachers in just weeks to pull off the labor-intensive hybrid model.

Officials are hoping the challenges will ease with more funds and no more alternating between in-person and remote classes.

Despite fears of a retirement boom, officials say fewer city teachers left their jobs this year than in the past, though many are struggling to keep up morale after a grueling year.

Officials have promised five days a week of in-person learning to any student who wants it in September, while signaling families will still have the option to remain fully remote.

And the officials also say they’re still working through the staffing needs, but typically hire about 5,000 new teachers each year.