Teachers shortages persist despite raises

Oklahoma' s teacher shortage has improved, but a shortage crisis is still crippling schools, a state survey has shown.

An annual teacher shortage survey from the Oklahoma State School Boards Association found school districts are experiencing more teacher vacancies than last year. Surveyed districts reported 596 vacancies, up from 494 in 2018, according to the survey released Tuesday.

Deputy Superintendent Jason Brown, of Oklahoma City Public Schools, agreed the teacher shortage is far from over.

“It truly is a crisis situation,” Brown told The Oklahoman. “Though we are glad that we've made some strides to try and reverse it, we are not at that point.

“There is a significant crisis in the state when it comes to qualified and certified teachers being available for our kids.”

The sixth-annual report surveyed 305 Oklahoma school districts that serve 81% of the state's public school students.

The number of vacancies didn' t include positions filled with emergency-certified teachers.

A $133.6 million increase to state education funding encouraged school districts to increase salaries and add teaching positions, according to the survey.

A vast majority of districts said teachers will receive a pay raise of $1,220 across the board.

Many of the state' s largest districts are implementing pay raises exceeding $1,220.

“The survey shows the historic investment in teacher pay is beginning to put a dent in the teacher shortage. The overall hiring of more teachers is an especially encouraging sign, but it's also obvious the teacher pipeline is weak,” OSSBA Executive Director Shawn Hi me said in a statement. “The teacher shortage crisis is not over.”

Budget cuts over t he past decade forced school districts to eliminate teaching jobs.

The reduction in teachers and lack of job openings likely masked the depth of the shortage, Hime said.

Now, districts are trying to restore their teaching staffs, often to reduce class sizes.

Serving nearly half of Oklahoma public school students ,145 districts said they created 599 new teaching positions this year.

Only 1 5% of t he surveyed districts said they intended to reduce teaching positions, with a total of 207 jobs eliminated.

Edmond Public Schools added 63 new positions for the 2019-20 school year and hired 300 new teachers overall.

Edmond

Superintendent Br et Towne said the district is almost completely staffed, but it's still short on special education teachers. The school boards group found that special education remains the most difficult shortage area for districts across the state.

“They' re very ch allenging,” Towne said of special education positions. “They take a toll on teachers because they are so intensive. Those issues and those relationships with students, they' re just difficult. So, I think you have a little bit more teacher burnout in special ed.”

A limited pipeline from colleges and universities has left school districts with few hiring options once special education teachers move on, Towne said. This issue isn' t unique to special education, either.

More than half of the surveyed districts said finding early-childhood and elementary teachers was moderately or very difficult.

Superintendents across the state were more optimistic about their ability to hire teachers than previous years. But, they still heavily rely on temporary solutions to fill vacancies, according to the survey.

Stop-gap measures include hiring emergency-certified teachers, retired teachers or part-time adjunct instructors.

The Oklahoma State Department of Education granted 3,038 emergency teaching certificates last year.

Eight and a half months into 2019, the state has already granted more than 1,600 emergency teaching certificates, an increase from the same time period in 2018, according to the survey.

Brown said Oklahoma City schools have had to explore short-term options to fill the 62 vacancies that remained on the district's first day of school last week.

Thirty of those positions were in special education, he said.

The University of Oklahoma has ramped up recruitment efforts to combat the lacking teacher pipeline in the state, said College of Education Dean Gregg Garn.

Students who agree to teach in Oklahoma after graduation could qualify for a debt-free program that forgives $ 5,000 of higher education debt for each year of teaching in the state.

Garn said the College of Education also has accessed federal grants that support master's and doctoral degrees for special education teachers.

Covering the costs of certification sand testing fees would reduce the barrier of entry to the education field for many college graduates, Garn said.

Tests and certifications can cost between $ 500 and $700, depending on the area of education.

“It's not a silver bullet solution but more of a silver buckshot,” Garn said. “It's a lot of pieces of strategies coming to together rather than one simple thing to fill the need for high-quality public school teachers across the state.”