Education Week - October 27, 2021 - 4

How Staff Shortages Are Crushing Schools
Teachers are
sacrificing and
patience is
running thin
By Mark Lieberman
Teachers are sacrificing their lunch
periods to cover unsupervised classrooms,
monitor lunch lines, and get
behind the wheel of school buses.
Students are enduring prolonged bus
rides and diminished meal options.
Principals are still searching far and
wide to fill dozens of open positions,
including for people who quit after
the school year started.
And at least several dozen school
buildings have temporarily shut
down due to an insufficient number
of adults on the job.
These are just a few of the many
effects widespread staff shortages
are having on the nation's 3.2 million
teachers, 91,000 principals, and
roughly 3 million support staff who
work for public schools, according
to interviews with educators and administrators
and an Education Week
analysis of local media reports.
Forty percent of district leaders
and principals describe their current
staff shortages as " severe " or " very
severe, " according to a survey conducted
Sept. 29 to Oct. 8 by the EdWeek
Research Center.
Crucial job openings that would
normally attract hundreds of applicants
are going to underqualified
candidates or remain unfilled, even
with higher wages and recruitment
bonuses fueled by federal relief aid.
When people do get hired, they're
taking time off more often because
they're sick or were exposed to
someone who may have COVID-19.
The current challenges highlight
longstanding labor issues in K-12
schools and raise questions about
the sustainability of fully reopened
school buildings this year as the
pandemic wears on. While vaccinations
have dimmed the immediacy
of the COVID-19 threat for many,
the ongoing global crisis continues
to take a substantial toll.
A longstanding crisis that shows
no signs of slowing
This is hardly the first time schools
have had trouble filling open positions;
many have long struggled to
find enough workers qualified to help
students with disabilities, for instance.
But the problem right now is particularly
acute, and many educators
told Education Week they've never
seen it worse. Subpar wages, minimal
benefits, tough work environments,
onerous pandemic protocols, pressing
health concerns, contentious political
disputes, and a broader trend of disruption
in the American labor market
are among the factors shaping this
year's K-12 chaos.
Stephanie LeBlanc, an
instructional strategist at
Greely Middle School in
Cumberland Center, Maine,
has picked up numerous
additional duties to help
cover for staffing shortages
at the school.
sick or on quarantine.
On the list of positions OlsenFarrell
is having trouble filling: custodians,
instructional assistants, bus
drivers, special education assistants,
and librarians. For the latter, the district
cut the middle school library
program to prioritize library services
for K-5 students.
A middle school social studies
District leaders and principals are
scurrying to raise wages, expand
benefits, and turbocharge recruitment
drives. But the most common
strategy in the short term for tackling
the shortage, according to the EdWeek
Research Center survey, is asking
employees to take on additional
responsibilities. Nearly two-thirds of
respondents said they've done that
this year.
Many educators have agreed to
pitch in for the sake of the students.
But that doesn't mean they're not
frustrated. For instance, four teachers
in Alabama sued their school district
this summer for adding on responsibilities
last school year without appropriate
compensation.
For many who work in schools, the
year has piled new stress on top of old,
falling far short of expectations for the
coveted return to normalcy that appeared
possible as vaccines rolled out
earlier this year.
" We're certainly not feeling like
we're in this period of recovery that
we keep hearing about, " said Brooke
Olsen-Farrell, superintendent of
the Slate Valley district in Vermont.
" We're still in this pandemic, and I
think feeling the effects even more so
this year than ever before. "
Olsen-Farrell spoke to Education
Week from her home, where she was
working remotely earlier this month
after her vaccinated husband tested
positive for a breakthrough case of
COVID-19. The next day, she said,
half of the eight nurses for her sixbuilding
school system would be out
4 | EDUCATION WEEK | October 27, 2021 | www.edweek.org
teacher and a high school special
education teacher both quit during
the first week of school.
" They just walked out in the middle
of the day, saying it was too much
in this kind of environment, " she
said. " It's just too stressful. "
The middle school teacher's replacement
started last week; the
district has yet to replace the other
teacher, Olsen-Farrell wrote in a recent
email.
Many exasperated educators are
expressing existential concerns
about the future of the public education
system.
Here's what people who work in
school buildings are seeing and feeling
as staff shortages persist.
Teachers are filling all kinds of
gaps, on top of their regular duties
Substitute teachers were the role
respondents to the EdWeek Research
Center survey most often said
they are struggling to fill.
At Belvidere Central Middle
School in Illinois, the assistant principal
shares with teachers a daily
spreadsheet listing all the teachers
who are absent and the timeslots
that need to be filled. Thanks to a
shortage of substitutes willing to
step in, teachers are asked, though
not required, to consider giving up
their planning period to plug a hole
in the schedule.
Johana Avila, a second-year instructor
who teaches 6th- and 7thgrade
social studies, recently covered
a physical education class. It
was surprisingly difficult to wrangle
the students and teach them a sport
she herself wasn't familiar with, she
said.
She likely wouldn't offer to serve
as a substitute again. " It's almost like
you feel a little bit of guilt, I should
be covering, I should help out. But at
the same time, we're already piled
so much with coming up with homework
for kids who are quarantined, "
Avila said. " I just feel like I need that
planning time to make sure I'm giving
enough for my students. "
At Huntington Middle School in
Huntington, W.Va., teachers are reluctant
to give any substitute teachers
a negative review in the required
paperwork because they're " desperate "
for anyone willing to work, said
Angela Nottingham, who teaches 7th
grade and leads the school's hiring
committee for teachers.
Some teachers are volunteering to
sacrifice both their planning periods
and delaying plans for days off to ensure
students are supervised.
" It's like baking a lasagna and baking
a cake at the exact same time in
the same kitchen, but you can only
use one bowl, " Nottingham said.
Most schools have avoided reverting
back to remote learning even
when staffing is thin, but some have
had no choice.
Hawthorne Elementary School in
Tulsa, Okla., has pivoted from inperson
to fully remote learning twice
since the school year started, once
for three days and once for two days.
The first time, teachers woke up
one morning to an email from administrators
notifying them that
the school building was shut down,
said Katherine Maloney-Jacobs, who
teaches 3rd grade reading and social
studies.
The next time, teachers found out
at 5 p.m. the night before-too late to
ensure students took home the materials
they'd need to keep learning
remotely.
" The hardest part was communicating
with enough advance notice
that parents don't feel caught off
guard, or didn't feel pressure to get
their students on Zoom at a certain
time, " she said. " I don't want parents
to feel pressured because I know everybody's
dealing with a lot right
now. "
Chaos has prevailed even when
the school building is open. On some
days, Maloney-Jacobs ends up with
five extra students in her class because
of teacher absences. She has
to quickly integrate them into her
classroom routine, find more desks
and chairs, and race to make additional
copies of assignments.
Olsen-Farrell said she's never seen
burnout among staff hit so soon after
the school year starts.
" Our teachers are June tired, and
it's the beginning of October, but I
was saying that at the beginning of
September already, " she said.
Nottingham said she thinks often
about the fact that she could take a
job doing data entry from her living
room and make more money than
she currently does.
" The only thing that my boss can
do is say, 'This is happening everywhere,' "
she said. " I understand that,
and we all understand that. But it just
doesn't seem like there's any relief at
all. "
Administrators struggle to make
the case that working in a school
will be rewarding
Thirty percent of district leaders
and principals who answered the
EdWeek Research Center survey
characterized their current staffing
shortage as " moderate. " Another
25 percent called it " severe, " and
15 percent said the issues are " very
severe. " Only five percent said their
schools aren't having staffing issues.
Administrators are faced with
tough decisions about allocating resources
and their own duties. The
challenging conditions in schools
don't lend themselves to pitching
their work environments to prospective
employees.
Several candidates at Oakwood
Middle School in Statesville, N.C.,
have told principal Carrie Tulbert
during job interviews that they
could likely get paid $7 more per
hour working at Chick-Fil-A, " in a
great environment serving chicken
all day, " than they could as a school
custodian.
" Typically you could have said,
'Working in education is so rewarding.
You get to be with kids no matter
what job you're doing, you're
impacting kids and how they feel at
school,' " Tulbert said.
" Now public education is such a
polarizing experience unfortunately,
and a political experience, and sometimes
a very antagonistic experience
because of what's going on in the
world, that's hard to say as a recruiter
and hiring manager. "
The school started the year with
Ryan David Brown for Education Week
http://www.edweek.org
Education Week - October 27, 2021

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