I arrived at work at 6:00am and stared at the long list of classrooms with no coverage. I felt an anxious lurch in my stomach. We already had classrooms without permanent teachers and then just days into the school year, teachers and paraprofessionals started getting sick. Like dominos falling, it was one right after the other. Looking at the growing list, it seemed unmanageable.
I continued to experience physical signs of my anxiety. As an instructional coach at my school, I knew I was going to have to spend my day covering a classroom. This meant my own work would have to be done at home. I started mentally checking off commitments and responsibilities in my personal life I would have to set aside to meet my work deadlines.
Even worse, spending the day as a substitute meant I couldn’t support the many new staff members on my campus, including several first year teachers. Supporting and coaching teachers is my passion and feeling as if I was unable to do that work left me feeling unmotivated and ineffective. Particularly, because I knew this wouldn’t be a one day circumstance. There was no way to solve the staffing challenges overnight.
This was not familiar territory for me. Until this year, my school managed to maintain a surprising level of staff stability. However, Arizona’s teacher retention and recruitment crisis has finally reached us. And the crisis isn’t limited to certified, permanent classroom educators. It also extends to substitute teachers. We simply don’t have enough people to fill the vacancies.
I knew this school year was going to be more unpredictable than years past. For the first time in my school’s history we turned over our administrative team and nearly half our teaching staff. While experiencing such a significant staffing transition made me nervous, it also provided a level of anticipation for new opportunities. Welcoming new people with fresh perspectives to our campus community filled me with excited anticipation.
However, replacing the staff we lost proved to be an incredibly challenging endeavor. There are very few applicants. The open positions outnumbered the people applying. Our new assistant principal worked tirelessly throughout the summer to staff our school. However, Arizona’s shortage of educators willing to teach proved to be problematic. It’s a dilemma plaguing schools throughout Arizona and causing panic for school leaders.
When the teacher well ran dry and recruiting efforts had been exhausted, we hired international teachers. We’ve discovered the process of getting them to the U.S. is frustratingly slow. We are still waiting for them to arrive and that means we have classrooms without teachers.
So when we had staff members start getting COVID, the already tenuous staffing situation was exacerbated. All available support staff had to substitute and special area classes were cancelled. Even with that we still had to split classes and redistribute students into already full classrooms.
It’s obvious how bad this is for students. But, it’s also incredibly bad for our teacher retention crisis.
Staffing shortages and teacher turnover place a terrible burden on returning and veteran staff. They are the ones forced to fill in the gaps caused by a lack of skilled and experienced educators. They often must write lesson plans, make copies, grade assignments, and respond to parent concerns for the understaffed or unstaffed classrooms. When there is no substitute, they receive 8-10 additional students into their classrooms for the day. All of this is in addition to the already massive responsibility of managing their own classroom of children.
Asking teachers to carry this extra load is taking a massive toll on educators. It’s a toll we can’t pay and it’s leading to burnout. Burnout causes teachers to leave the profession, which then causes more shortages, which then causes more burnout. It’s an excruciating cycle.
The cycle must be broken. There are different ideas for how to solve the teacher retention crisis. One idea Arizona is trying is to lower teaching standards. I can say unequivocally without an ounce of self-doubt that is not the answer. Handing a classroom full of students to an under-skilled, ill-prepared, and inexperienced person is a burden for the trained and certified teachers who will be compelled to support them. This is a short-sighted solution with grave long-term implications.
The theme of my beginning of the school year blogs is typically about change because each new year is accompanied by some degree of change. A secondary theme of my blogs is hope and opportunity. I’ve always seen opportunity in change and that perspective gives me hope.
Right now, I’m feeling less hopeful. I’m struggling to see the opportunity in teacher-less classrooms. At times I feel defeated and overwhelmed.
Yet, I’m inherently an optimistic person. I feel confident I will be able to recalibrate and at least find a more balanced perspective, even if I can’t be outright enthusiastic. And while that will be much better for my mental health, it won’t solve our classroom crisis.
In past blogs, I’ve written about the power of change. Something needs to change with how we are managing teacher recruitment and retention in Arizona. Our current trajectory is not sustainable. We need bold action and a deep commitment to our public school students and educators.
I have enough optimism left to believe the change is possible. I hope I’m not disappointed.
Photo by Mizuno K: https://www.pexels.com/photo/stressed-depressed-office-worker-sitting-on-office-floor-12911298/
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Nicole Wolff
I'm a California native. However, I've spent my entire career teaching in Arizona public schools, as well as instructing at the university level. My passion for teacher advocacy and support led me to become an Instructional Coach in 2013. I am currently a coach at a K-8 school in Goodyear and love the students and teachers I get to work with every day. I have spent my career actively involved in instructional improvement, chairing many committees including Response to Intervention, Academic Accountability, and Professional Development Committees. I was named Dysart Hero (teacher of the year) in 2012. I was honored to serve as a 2017-18 Arizona Hope Street Teacher Fellow. I earned a Bachelor’s in Elementary Education and a Master’s in Education/ESL from Ottawa University. I am a National Board Certified Teacher. I’m also endorsed as an Early Childhood Specialist, Reading Specialist, and Gifted Specialist. In my free time, I enjoy reading, camping, and spending time with my family.
Comments 4
Oh Wow! First, I want to say that your story is important to me. Although I do not teach in Goodyear, I live here so I am concerned about what is happening in our classrooms. Thank you for doing all you can with what you have available to you. You hit on so many important topics. The one that I think you highlight beautifully is that more than a money/funding problem, we need more people. Not just more people, we need more trained/qualified people. Not just more trained/qualified people, but trained/qualified people that actually know how to teach. A part of me feels that there are forces somewhere with an alternative agenda to create a “need” for computer-based instruction with highly trained paraprofessionals as the “answer” to our shortage. In short, sending the message that we do not need humans to provide instruction, just support and supervision (which requires little training). I say this because I see computer-based instruction being promoted more and more. The problem with this is that we teach humans, not machines. There is no way that I have link to the needed resources, but I do appreciate you sharing and I am feeling you.
I feel the pain and have experienced it. I needed to make a change and so I am a highly qualified teacher in AZ. I am not in the classroom for the first time in a few decades. I am teaching online and chose carefully to avoid the lack of personal touch that many schools espouse in online teaching. While it is hard to substitute in person teaching with online, it can be effective. The bigger problems you speak of – new legislature deciding to not have highly qualified teachers will cause a greater problem and is not even a bandaid. Money, attention to our students and staff all trickle into a society that will become even more poorly educated. As one commenter said, forces want an alternative outcome – that is very clear. I would only hope that people VOTE and get out to speak as this is not over. Thanks for what you do and I see the work you do – even if I’m not in the classroom this year. Courage..
Thank you for writing this Nicole! It is spot on and so very true! As someone who has left the classroom, I feel this so deeply. I wish that I could have stayed in the classroom and has a reasonable amount of certainty that I would be able to support my family. Leaving was not selfish, it was self care. I know there is a huge hole left in my absence and I will continue to fight for the resources (financial and human) to fill all of the holes in our schools.
It’s so sad to see how schools across Arizona are affected by the teacher shortage so badly. This is one area where I do not want others to be in the same boat that we are in my school and district. The amount of people who are trained and know how to apply that knowledge to actual teaching AND are willing to teach is getting smaller every day. You are right – something must change before the teachers that want to remain in the profession leave for something else. I think it needs to start with the expectations placed on teachers and making the job of a classroom teacher more sustainable – adequate specials and recess coverage, a reasonable number of students in class, support for behavior, less meetings, and respect.