Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - School districts across the Western New York region are getting ready to return to the classroom in the coming days following the Labor Day holiday.
Many schools across the nation already have classes back in session, but not without some concerns regarding proper staffing across the district. This is especially the case with teachers in the classroom, where some schools have needed to start the year short 100 teachers or more.
Perhaps, a large focal point with regards to teacher shortages has been a school district's ability to hire new teachers, while also retaining a large number of teachers already on staff.
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As districts head into the 2022-23 school year, some have felt good about where they're numbers are with regards to the overall total of teachers on staff. Even for some schools, the numbers have been better than first anticipated.
"Initially, we anticipated somewhere in the nature of 175 to 180 either retirements or resignations, presently that number stands at about 138. So we've had more teachers either defer retirement or decide to stay with the district," said Buffalo School Board President Lou Petrucci. "We're trying to address some of the problems we've had with onboarding teachers, because we want to hire them as quickly as we can to put them in place and have them ready. ... Sometimes we were still onboarding people into the middle of September and beyond, and that isn't good for the district. We still are about 200 teachers short to be fully staffed, and oftentimes these are in our high needs - science teachers and math teachers - and teachers that all districts are struggling to find and to hire."
Meanwhile, there are some districts that are willing to admit that they're numbers heading into the school year are putting them in a tough situation.
"Right now, we're in a good spot to open school next week, we are fully staffed with our teachers. With that said, though, we are definitely feeling teacher shortages," said Sweet Home Central School District Superintendent, Mike Ginestre. "There have been definitely less applications this year moving forward for all teaching positions throughout the district, but especially in certain certification areas, special education, the sciences, maths. Those are areas of concern for us, as we move forward. And unfortunately, we're not really seeing much relief in sight."
When it comes to charter schools in the area, the challenge of hiring and retaining teachers on staff is always more difficult, but it has become more challenging in recent years.
"We work in the inner city, and we have a challenging population," said Linda Marszalek, Head of Reach Academy Charter School on Ash Street in Buffalo. "It is easy for teachers to want to be attracted into a suburban job, where they are able to receive tenure, they can have a little bit more security. Once they do get tenure, they're not held to their test scores, like charter schools are, we're held to our accountability, in terms of keeping us open. So we've actually had to dramatically change our pay salary schedule, so that we could really attract people and retain them, because what we're finding, and I think it's common in charter schools, is that teachers will work for one or two years right out of school with the idea they hope to get something, once they get more experience under their belt, in more of a local district, somewhere closer to where they live, perhaps. So we get people trained, and then they leave us. It's a challenge."
As mentioned by some school administrators, while some schools are not feeling the overall impact of the teacher shortages, where they're certainly feeling it is when it comes to specialized curriculums or content areas that are often in short order.
"Special education, science, social studies, those more specialized certifications that are more difficult to fill. We're also in need of, at this time, an increase in social-emotional needs amongst our students, our families, in need of mental health professionals," said Buffalo School Board member Larry Scott. "I know, working in a neighboring district, that we still have in mental health professionals, and in our teaching staff, unfilled positions. It certainly is a challenge."
However, it has been those shortages for some schools that has led to a larger scale problem overall for others.
"I think three years ago, four years ago, it was more in certain certified areas where we saw the shortage, but now we're seeing it across the board," Ginestre said. "Less candidates have gone into teacher college prep programs, and so we're experiencing that now. Now, there are several reports of upticks in the number of candidates going through teaching programs, so that's good news for us. But we are definitely feeling and seeing a shortage across the board."
From the charter school angle, Marszalek believes the 2021-22 school years was their most challenging year with regards to teaching shortages. She attributes that to the government coming out with money for districts to put on additional positions to help kids catching up from the lost time due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"What that really impacted was that it was causing districts now to kind of poach teachers from each other and from other inner-city schools. That's really not something that we've seen to that dramatic extent," Marszalek explained. "I think that money runs out after a year, so we have one more year that we're hoping that we'll start to see more candidates for the positions, and there may be some empty positions that won't be filled again, because once that money runs out, they won't have a continual stream. So we're hoping that it's gonna get better, in terms of having a richer candidate pool."
As concerns for full-time teachers are present with every district, perhaps the biggest impact of a shortage is being felt with the healthy supply of substitute teachers available across the board.
"Absolutely a concern," Scott said for Buffalo Public Schools. "The district recently hosted a job fair for substitute teachers. That's where when we have illness, we have bad weather, things come up with teachers and their kids and they're not able to get to work, they have to take a day, that's where we really struggle and we have a lot of those call ins. If we don't have a staff to call in for substitutes, that's when we're leaving somewhat unattended classrooms. We're pulling people to supervise students, and it's not obviously the best learning situation, safety situation for our schools. That's also something that we're pursuing aggressively to make sure that we have, on standby, a good amount of substitute teachers that can be called in to fill in."
For many schools, most of the people that were in a substitute role, whether full-time or part-time, are now hired and working as full-time teachers. Where some schools are currently running into problems is with certain processing issues before being hired, such as something as simple as having them fingerprinted.
"The pistol permit procedure, which comes to a close [Wednesday], is really bogging down fingerprinting for those that are just coming to us and want to work uncertified. So there's a ripple effect to everything that's happening right now, with this area of shortages. If it's not one thing, it's another, and it's all kind of interconnected," said Mark Laurrie, Superintendent of Niagara Falls City School District. "Just [Tuesday], we were able to secure a couple of people interested in being subs, and they're going to have to wait until Sept. 13 to get their fingerprinting."
While it has been a challenge, especially over the past two years, to try and bring in a healthy amount of substitute teachers, some districts are actually starting to experience a rejuvenation of their substitute numbers.
"As we've begun to pivot out of the pandemic, and I think as things as far as health and safety have gotten better, we've seen some of our substitutes, who have really been tried and true for us, have started to come back," said James Bialasik, Superintendent of the Springville-Griffith Institute Central School District. "We have a decent cadre of substitutes, people who live in the area, live in the community and come into sub for us. I think we can always use more substitutes, but as of right now, we're in a decent spot, as far as substitutes go."
So how do school districts feel that teacher shortages can be better handled going forward? For Scott, he believes it starts with influencing students already in the classroom to pursue a career in education.
"With COVID and then also some of the politics that have been playing out nationally regarding public education, I think it's been quite discouraging to current teachers, some that have left in the past 2-3 years, many that left this past year, and it's also discouraging anybody that maybe was thinking about a career in education. We need to change that narrative, re-charge, and encourage more of our youth to pursue a profession in the field of education," he said.
While better influencing students while in high school is one possible way to attack the issue, Laurrie presents a couple of other issues that could alter the course for these problems.
"I think that we've got to go right to the college programs and have a direct residency program or pipeline, he said. "I think we've got to look at the special ed certification process, and I know the state's in the middle of doing that, but I think it's got to be expedited. They went to a more content specific certification, and I don't think that's necessary, especially in special education where pedagogy and teaching of skills is just as important as the content. So there's a couple of easy, quick fixes that I think can happen, but I think really working backwards into the college pool of those that want to be teachers, and then even pushing back into high school to recruit more. But what I can tell you is not a good idea is to lower the standards. That's not the best idea for us, for the teaching profession in any way, shape, or form."
One college program that has already looked to better address the teacher shortage issues with integrating a Teacher Residency Program is the University at Buffalo. They have already worked with the Buffalo Public Schools to get student teachers in the classroom and working directly with students and the district to better prepare themselves for a job right out of school.
For Petrucci, he can see the program working well, with U.B. working in partnership with the Buffalo Public School District on a variety of different levels.
"It's a major research university, the School of Education has been very good to us and we will continue to work with them," Petrucci said. "But not just U.B., because we work with our other local institutions - Canisius, Buffalo State or D'Youville - we want to make sure that we form these strong relationships so that when teachers do decide to work for the Buffalo Public Schools, they have that familiarity of what it's like to work in an urban district."
As U.B. will continue its work with Buffalo City Schools going forward, the Teacher Residency Program is set to get started at other districts across the region. This includes Sweet Home Central School District, which resides just down Maple Road in Amherst from North Campus.
After meeting with the folks from U.B. about their future partnership, Ginestre is eager to see what kind of results the program will garner for the Sweet Home district.
"We want to make it a two-way partnership. UB is doing a lot of research in the education world, and we've offered Sweet Home as a place they can do their research and in turn, they want to partner with us on finding candidates that we can fill out and put in the teacher pipeline here at Sweet Home," Ginestre said. "It's an awesome partnership with UB, and we're also talking to other colleges and universities locally that are offering residency programs or thinking about offering residency programs. It really is a solution to some of the issues we have with the shortages. The great part about it is if we get candidates in our buildings early, they're getting great training, great professional development. They're working with an awesome staff and faculty here at Sweet Home. We get the candidates right when they're starting, and we can grow them and develop them into Sweet Home teachers."