NEWBERRY COUNTY — The question for the teacher shortage now becomes, what might need to happen to help the situation and encourage more students to go into the education field.
Pam Arrington, chief human resources officer for the District, said loan forgiveness could help.
There is currently a loan forgiveness program for students who graduate with a degree in education, but not everyone qualifies.
“It is in critical geographical areas, or critical need areas, and that does not include elementary or early childhood, we are seeing a shortage there as well,” Arrington said. “That is depending on the critical need school, depending on turn over and fortunately our turn over, when you look at it state wide, is good, but it is also because of your demographics as far as poverty level.”
The poverty level is generally 70 percent for loan fogginess, according to Arrington. She said there are several schools that may be at that level one year, but maybe not the next.
“The Legislature is going to have to look at a young person that graduates in the teacher education program, regardless of where they work, being able to have some type of loan forgiveness,” Arrington said.
Superintendent Jim Suber agreed that loan forgiveness would be huge, because it is unbelievable the amount of debt some students incur at a four-year institution.
“When you start out on a starting teacher salary and you have a family and you are trying to relocate and you are looking for housing, or rent an apartment, or car payment, it becomes a budgetary issue. One reason we see a decline in number of candidates going into teaching profession,” he said. “We have got to improve teacher salaries, our teacher and administrators, whether federal or state mandates, they are being asked to do more and more with less and less, and that is a challenge. We have got to be competitive in the job market from a salary point.”
Another way teachers could be brought into the profession is through alternative certification. This is where someone might have graduated with a math degree, but did not go through the certification part. That person could become a teacher.
To do this, your degree would need to be in a critical need subject area such as math, science, music, art, business education. If they qualify they have to take the PRAXIS, a content test in that critical need area. Once they pass, they are admitted into the program and receive a letter of eligibility and they are hired by a district. They will then have to take a rigorous ten day program where they learn how to teach.
“We have teachers currently who do that, right now maybe 12. It takes three years to go through the program,” Arrington said.
What if the teacher shortages does not improve?
“I do not want to say it will happen, we got to have the opportunity to interview and recruit and try and find people to fill positions, but very obviously, if you have a teacher shortage at a particular school, then the classroom numbers and enrollment is going to go up, which is not ideal,” Suber said.
If the classroom size did increase, Suber said they could move to project based learning. This is when students work in smaller groups, and the teacher will roam the room while the groups work on the project assigned. Based on the students levels, one group could work on one particular project, while another works on something entirely different.
“Just because you have a large group that you are teaching, does not mean you cannot have smaller groups and the teacher would roam,” Suber said.
Virtual education is another possibility, this is a type of online program.
“Blended learning, teacher in the classroom, but also a certain portion of the class that it blends with technology, part of the class is working on something as far as an online program, or a project online and the teacher actively working with other students,” Suber said.