Amid a teacher shortage, these schools sign recruits still in college
At 26, Samantha Birman is already in her second career. She served three years in the Army, including a deployment to Germany, before becoming an education major at the University of South Florida.
“I always wanted to help children,” Birman said. Now, still in college, she has a signed job offer from Hillsborough County Public Schools.
Birman and 20 other students were celebrated recently in a gathering that included balloons, family in the audience, light refreshments and a parade of officials from both the university and the school system. District human resources chief Marie Whelan shook hands with each student, smiling as she told them how excited she was to work with them.
The warm welcomes came at a critical time for a school district that, like others around the nation, is battling a crippling labor shortage. At last count, Hillsborough had about
1,000 advertised vacancies, roughly half for classroom teachers. Shortly before the ceremony began, Whelan said she wished there could be more such events.
A survey in October by the national publication Education Week found that 40 percent of district leaders and principals describe their current staff shortages as “severe” or “very severe,” despite higher wages fueled
by federal relief aid.
In Hillsborough, the southeastern suburbs and rural communities are especially hard it. This month there were 29 openings at Gibsonton’s Eisenhower Middle School alone, 14 in jobs that serve special needs students.
“It becomes a major obstacle in meeting the needs of kids,” said teachers union President Rob Kriete.
Aspiring teachers at the signing ceremony were part of a program that addresses the need in a specific area: middle school math.
A middle school residency program — funded by the Helios Education Foundation and focused on science, technology, engineering and math — allows each student to spend two years in three middle schools, working alongside district teachers in what is, essentially, student teaching on steroids.
Program leaders say 90 percent of the residents progress directly into district jobs, where they are considered to be at the level of a third-year teacher. The others typically enter graduate school, with the assumption that they will become teachers afterward.
Employment, according to the precontract binders, is contingent on the applicant meeting all certification requirements under state law.
Students in the program said the experience has helped them acclimate to the diversity among district schools.