Multiple metro-east school districts finding it hard to fill teaching jobs. How will it affect the new year?
Students will return to classrooms in a matter of weeks, and some local school districts still have job openings for teachers.
District officials say they are actively recruiting and interviewing in hopes of filling the positions before the school year begins, but challenges exist.
In several places, districts have been getting fewer job applications because of a teacher shortage that started years ago in Illinois. And now, some educators are leaving their jobs to make more money elsewhere as inflation drives costs up, the school leaders say.
If they cannot find someone in time, districts may have to rely on a substitute teacher. Some districts in Illinois have also asked educators to teach in classrooms outside of their content specialty under emergency licenses to fill vacancies at times.
Meanwhile, students can be negatively impacted by less qualified teachers and a lack of consistency during turnover, according to local education researcher Jim Rosborg.
These challenges have financial implications for school districts, too. A common measure they are taking to attract teachers and substitutes is increasing pay.
Rosborg says there are other things that school districts, as well as colleges and the legislature, could do to address the teacher shortage. They include sparking students’ interest in education careers now and helping with their college tuition later.
Southwest Illinois teacher hiring crunch
In the last week of July, six school districts posted 20 open positions, including 13 for teachers, on the St. Clair County Regional Office of Education’s online job board.
One of those open teaching positions left Belleville’s Whiteside District 115 at risk of not having a music program for elementary students when school resumes in mid-August.
Whiteside District 115 has two schools and about 1,250 students on average, based on enrollment figures from the past four years.
Superintendent Mark Heuring said the district found a candidate for the music teacher position with about two weeks left until the first day of school.
“That’s a huge relief to us,” he said Monday.
Heuring estimated the district had six more jobs to fill, including teachers and other staff. He said he has seen “a huge decline” in the number of applicants for school jobs compared to a decade ago.
Inspired by the vacant music teacher position, Heuring tried something new this year to get the word out about open positions. He sent letters to the community hoping they would bring in leads for jobs from custodians and teacher’s aides to licensed teachers.
Harmony-Emge District 175 Superintendent Dave Deets said he has noticed the decline in job applicants, too. He remembers receiving about 150 applications for teaching positions in his first year as a principal in 2008.
“You’re lucky to get 15 or 20 now,” Deets said.
Harmony-Emge District 175 has three schools in Belleville and about 790 students, on average. Deets said the district is “a little bit more fortunate than most” to have just one job opening as of Monday for a special education teacher.
Belleville District 118, one of the larger elementary districts with 11 schools and an average of 3,600 students, was looking for four teachers.
And the district with St. Clair County’s largest enrollment, East St. Louis District 189, needed to fill 15 teaching positions as of this week, which it advertised on its website rather than with the regional office of education.
East St. Louis District 189 has 10 schools and almost 5,300 students on average.
District spokeswoman Sydney Stigge-Kaufman said East St. Louis schools are offering $3,000 bonuses for teachers in hard-to-fill positions, including science, math and foreign language.
Possible solutions to the teacher shortage
Rosborg, the researcher, said school districts could help increase the pool of teachers in the future by starting “grow your own” programming now. That could include Future Teachers of America clubs or other ways to encourage kids to consider education jobs, he said.
Rosborg is a retired Belleville District 118 superintendent and a chairman of education doctorate dissertation committees at McKendree University. His proposals for addressing the teacher shortage were included in the latest issue of the Illinois School Board Journal, a publication of the Illinois Association of School Boards for school board members and superintendents.
Some local districts already have “grow your own” programs for their students, including Sparta District 140 and Collinsville District 10.
East St. Louis District 189 plans to become the next district to offer similar programming for high school students in the upcoming school year, according to Stigge-Kaufman.
Rosborg has also called on colleges and universities to limit future increases in tuition to help students studying education, and he wants Illinois to offer state scholarships toward their tuition.
He said a scholarship from Illinois is what helped him through college 50 years ago, which is why he believes it works.
“I lived that,” he said.
This story was originally published August 3, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
