Northern region has fewer teacher vacancies
Budget shortfall still a challenge as well as enrollment decrease
While other school districts around the state struggle to fill some 550 teacher vacancies, the northeast region that includes Taos Municipal School District, Questa Independent School District and Peñasco Independent School District isn’t feeling the sting.
The region, which includes 20 independent school districts and charter schools spread across nine counties, has only 21 open teacher positions to fill.
A recent report prepared by New Mexico State University detailed findings on educational vacancies statewide earlier this month. The report lists a total of 889 educator vacancies, which includes not only teachers but instructional coaches, educational assistants and counselors. The central region encompasses both Santa Fe and Albuquerque public schools and continues to see the highest number of educator vacancies, with 258 open teacher positions. Although job openings are down 11 percent from last year, according to the report, special circumstances with virtual-based learning provide its own challenges in recruitment and retainment of educational faculty.
A decrease in total students enrolled in public schools, attributed to the novel coronavirus, may mean fewer teaching positions need to be filled. However for many districts, the hiring process is seasonal and begins in May. Taos Municipal School District Superintendent Dr. Lillian Torrez said the decrease in enrollment, paired with 60 percent of surveyed parents wanting to keep their schoolaged children at home, actually resulted in a surplus of teachers.
“You hire all the teachers, then the students don’t come, and then you have too many teachers and you have to find funding to pay them,” Torrez said. “So we’re not really short on teachers, we may need a couple of teachers, but overall we were over on teachers because we lost students.”
Another challenge school districts across the state face is a lack of funds and resources. Taos Municipal Schools had to tighten its belt in the wake of a $1.9 million budget shortfall. Torrez said they shaved 3 to 5 percent off each
account in an effort to offset losses and balance the books.
“All these openings that we have, the two teachers, that’s $180,000 that we saved,” she said. “So you may have openings, but you’re not paying those paychecks every month and that’s kind of helping set off some of the cuts. We’re trying to figure out all these things.”
Torrez said the biggest struggle she faces when it comes to staffing is finding enough special education teachers to answer the call. Even with all her efforts poured into recruitment, she said it’s a continual issue.
“We can’t keep our special ed teachers. They just leave education, I never hear of them going anywhere else,” she said.
Out of the 21 vacancies in the region, Taos Municipal School District has a vacancy of two teachers. The employment opportunity webpages for Peñasco Independent School District showed one elementary school teacher vacancy, and Questa Independent School District has an opening for a principal at Alta Vista Elementary and Intermediate School. Moreno Valley High School in Angel Fire, part of Cimarrón’s school district, shows one teacher and one education assistant opening.
Torrez attributed the community of Taos as a reason why many teachers in the northeast region stay. She said the support in the community, from helping students connect to the internet to local nonprofits, is a big reason why the region isn’t facing the same teacher shortage as the rest of the state.
“We work with the community, we engage – there’s so many things in Taos. There’s nonprofits, there’s people that care enough to say, ‘I want to take some action and help out.’ All of that together helps
keep the district strong,” Torrez said. “Even with COVID, we’re trying to stay positive and think of all the good things and we’ve got great teachers that keep everything going. Couldn’t do it without them and we just want to support them as much as possible.”
Lisa Hamilton, superintendent at Peñasco Independent School District, shared the sentiment that special education teachers are the hardest to come by. Although Peñasco schools are conducting virtual-based learning through the first semester, special education students are coming to the schools for in-person schooling.
“Out of the total number of teachers, special ed teachers was very high, as was elementary, and I found that to be surprising in a lot of ways,” Hamilton said of the report. “We’re interested in making sure that we always have good special ed teachers.”
Hamilton said the latest teacher vacancy was very sudden, but she already has two applicants currently interviewing for the elementary school teacher position. She also expressed excitement for the different grants and recruitment programs that are helping education students get certified. One of them, the Three Rivers Teacher Quality Partnership through Eastern New Mexico University, placed two interns in Peñasco Independent School District who will graduate with a master’s degree in education upon completion.
“We have very good applicants,” Hamilton said. “Very experienced and highly credentialed, I feel like there is some positivity based on the fact that there’s a lot of grants and grant money coming in and that there’s a lot of opportunities for students and I think that’s getting the word out to people.”