Among school staff there is a culture of covering for each other—when there’s not enough, everyone gives a little bit more. So, it’s not surprising that in a recent Tyton Partners survey of educators asking what resources would be most valuable in addressing the current challenges they are facing, each of the top three responses related to hiring more people. Respondents said that having more teachers, additional counselors, and/or additional paraprofessionals or teacher aids at their school were their top priorities.
Why is this happening?
In many cases, schools have been unable to quickly fill the gaps created by absences to the extent that they were able to in past years. With pervasive staffing shortages it has become too difficult to find people willing and able to jump in and cover the work.
A staffing crisis is impacting most employment sectors across the country, and schools are especially feeling it. The pandemic has only exacerbated what was already a stressful occupation, leaving educators with more work hours and less support to get the work done. Labor Statistics report there are 567,000 fewer educators in America’s public schools today than there were before the pandemic, and 43 percent of jobs posted are going unfilled.
Imperfect solutions
This has led some districts to attempt to solve the challenge with money. Schools are offering retention bonuses to staff members who stay through the end of the school year and pick up some of the slack created by gaps elsewhere. People are being asked to take on responsibilities that are in some cases completely outside of their own job duties. Administrators know this is a big ask, and are acknowledging it with more pay.
State-level funding is also being activated in an effort to support schools in addressing the challenge. Legislators in Oregon, for example, authorized a plan to allocate $78 million to districts in the state to use for staff recruitment and retention bonuses.
But is more pay really what staff want? Some say they would rather have lower stress and a more manageable workload. Yet in many places right now there’s no room to offer the tradeoff; there is simply not enough coverage and everyone is being asked to do more.
The ultimate goal: fully staffed schools
As staff absences rise, substitute shortages are further exacerbating the challenge. One Texas district, for example, reported that it was able to fill only 58 percent of its open substitute positions.
Mike Teng, CEO of Swing Education, which places substitutes in schools across the country, has seen firsthand the growing need in schools.
“We’ve seen a higher need for substitute staffing across the thousands of schools we work with in several states. We all want the world to just be ‘back to normal’ again, but the reality is that COVID’s impact on existing substitute teacher pools was to bring them down to zero,” Teng said. “The solution has just been doing the hard work of making it as easy and low cost as possible for candidates to get into a classroom and help make guest staff feel included and valued.”
Compounding absences is the high concentration of family and medical leaves, driven by maternity and caregiving leaves in an educator population that is 76 percent female. This is one area where schools leverage teletherapy to ensure coverage without adding burden to their own staff. Plugging in an additional teletherapy resource makes someone available in a flexible way, who can cover needs across multiple school sites and be on call when unanticipated needs arise. For the school districts we work with, requests for coverage for staff leaves of absence across teams of counselors, speech pathologists and occupational therapists has doubled versus prior years.
“Adaptability is key,” said Tarrence McGovern, director for special education in Kershaw County Schools in South Carolina. “Carefully monitor your needs, rosters, and caseloads. Don’t hesitate. Anticipate shortages and look for solutions now.”
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