The latest survey of school districts by the Oklahoma State School Boards Association found that 1,000 teaching vacancies remain even after 600 teaching jobs were eliminated since last school year.
Student enrollment is growing, and to grapple with the teacher shortage, school districts are seeking record numbers of emergency teaching certificates to allow applicants who haven’t completed basic higher education and training requirements to enter the classroom right away.
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Since July, the state has received 664 such requests for emergency teaching certificates — already exceeding the 506 it received in all of 2014-15.
“Saying we don’t have the money for teacher pay raises is no longer an acceptable excuse,” said Shawn Hime, OSSBA’s executive director. “Schools are doing the best they can under the circumstances, but we have to ask ourselves: Are we really OK with 5- and 6-year-olds who will go without a teacher trained to develop young readers? Are we really OK with eliminating high-level science classes because we refuse to pay teachers a competitive wage?”
State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister took office in January and quickly began advocating for a proposal to help address the teacher shortage by increasing teachers’ base pay by $5,000 over the next five years.
She said the new OSSBA survey results “confirms what we have all suspected, that the teacher shortage has worsened significantly.”
“The shortage has meant the elimination of teaching positions, increased class sizes and the slashing of class offerings. We are shortchanging our schoolchildren each day we fail to take bold action,” Hofmeister said.
For the second year in a row, OSSBA conducted a statewide survey during the first half of August to determine the latest count of teacher vacancies. This year’s survey added questions about the numbers of teaching positions school districts had simply eliminated amid the shortage.
Districts with about 80 percent of the state’s public school students enrolled participated.
Among other survey findings:
About 75 percent of school leaders say hiring teachers was more difficult this year compared to last year.
The shortages are widespread, regardless of the district’s size and location and the subject area.
About 60 percent of districts anticipate needing to seek emergency teaching certifications to fill vacancies.
Almost half of districts expect to increase class sizes.
About one-third of school leaders said their schools likely will offer fewer courses this school year.
Special education, elementary, high school science, high school math and middle school math are the most difficult teaching positions to fill.
School leaders are deeply worried that the overall quality of teaching applicants is having a detrimental impact on student achievement.
Many newly hired teachers need extensive support and training, which increases pressure on school leaders who have limited time and resources with which to provide support.
Two new laws were created last year to allow for broader use of recruitment and retention bonuses and to ease testing requirements for experienced out-of-state teachers. Another legislative effort, which would raise the cap on how much retired teachers could make if they returned to the classroom, cleared the first of two years’ worth of hurdles needed for passage.
But Hime said those efforts are no substitute for a long-term funding commitment to public education.
Hime said such a long-term funding strategy should increase teacher compensation to make Oklahoma schools regionally competitive to recruit and retain good teachers, provide resources teachers need to meet the needs of today’s students, and help “rebuild the teacher pipeline” by launching a bold, statewide scholarship or loan forgiveness plan for future educators.
