Struggling to fill teaching positions, districts look to emergency hires

In a week, tens of thousands of students in the Mid-Columbia will head back to the classroom.

Many will be meeting their teacher for the first time. And for some teachers, the first day will be the first time they’ve ever been at the head of a classroom.

Several Mid-Columbia school districts will rely on emergency teacher certifications for substitute and full-time positions to ensure they can staff schools this fall as many struggle to find qualified teachers. Some will be student teachers originally scheduled to work with a mentor teacher; others will have a university degree but no formal teacher training.

“We may use a few on the first day (of classes) to get the doors open,” said Tony Howard, human relations director for the Richland School District.

District officials said the situation isn’t ideal but they’ve had good experiences with past emergency hires and they need to staff classrooms. Others have said they have reservations about putting untested new teachers in charge of students and say it’s a sign of larger issues in education.

Growing need, shrinking pool

Washington school districts hire thousands of teachers every school year. Most hold a residency or professional teaching certificate, usually provided after an educator has worked for a number of years.

Those certifications require a teacher hold a bachelor’s or higher degree from a regionally accredited college or university and have completed a state-approved teacher preparation program. Such programs typically require classroom work along with hands-on teaching experiences, such as practicums and student teaching assignments, before allowing candidates to graduate.

But there are also a variety of limited teaching certificates, including emergency certifications, for substitute teachers and contracted positions, that districts can seek to fill teaching positions for which they can’t find applicants.

Emergency certificate candidates for contracted positions must have spent some time in a teacher preparation program and can only be certified for a year. Emergency substitutes, however, only need a bachelor’s degree and do not have to have any prior formal teacher training and may be certified for up to three years. Districts must demonstrate that they’ve exhausted the pool of otherwise qualified applicants.

A statewide shortage of teachers, particularly those qualified to work in special education or who are bilingual, has caused administrators to scramble to fill open positions.

In the Mid-Columbia, the dearth of applicants is an extension of last school year’s shortage of substitute teachers, said Kennewick Assistant Superintendent Doug Christenson. A combination of factors — teachers leaving the profession to pursue other careers, teacher retirements and increasing student enrollments — have exacerbated the problem.

Careful management

Kennewick will have more than 20 emergency certified substitute teachers when most Tri-City classes start next week . Some will start off immediately in a classroom, Christenson said, given the difficulty the district has had in filling some full-time positions.

While the emergency substitutes must have at minimum of a bachelor’s degree and be able to pass a background check, all are also personally interviewed by Christenson, who oversees human relations for the district. He noted that many who started with the district last year are now enrolled in a teaching program.

“Many of them enjoyed it, did a good job and are back with us this year,” he said.

Leslee Caul of the Pasco School District confirmed that at least four teachers with emergency certifications will be in contracted positions this fall. She said they will all be full-time teachers, not substitutes, though state records show Pasco has filed for four emergency substitute certificates, as well.

“We wouldn’t hire people who couldn’t handle the job,” Caul said.

The Richland School District will have about a dozen emergency substitutes to start the school year. Most will be student teachers but a few have only a bachelor’s degree.

The district began using emergency substitutes heavily last year and Howard expects that to continue given the teacher shortage. But the district said it is careful about their use, screening candidates closely and making sure emergency substitutes aren’t given assignments longer than covering a classroom when a teacher has a sudden short-term illness or needs to attend a day or two of training.

“At some point you have to make sure there’s some integrity in the classroom,” Howard said.

Many neighboring school districts used emergency substitutes during the past school year. Several of them — Kiona-Benton City, North Franklin and Prosser — are already seeking to bring on a handful of emergency substitutes for this school year as well, state records show.

Adding to the problem?

Heritage University in Toppenish is reportedly working with districts on a program where emergency certified substitutes without any teacher preparation can enroll while working in the classroom.

Spokesman David Mance said the private university “continues to modify and create programs that meet districts’ short- and long-term demands for teachers, while maintaining its responsibility to ensure students rise to the level of ‘highly qualified teacher’ as defined by federal standards.”

Washington State University is allowing some of its teaching students scheduled to be student teachers this fall to receive emergency certifications and begin teaching full time.

Officials in the university’s College of Education are considering such circumstances on a case-by-case basis, said Chris Sodorff, director for field services with the college in Pullman.

“This situation asks us to put pre-service teachers in a sticky situation,” she said.

One out of 10 new teachers will quit after just one year teaching, with that rising to nearly half after five years, officials said. Putting them to work sooner and with less training and support threatens to drain the pool of qualified individuals even faster.

“The challenges our teachers face in the classroom grows year after year,” Sodorff said.

Teacher union leaders aren’t concerned about the emergency certifications from a contractual standpoint. Rich Wood, a spokesman for the Washington Education Association, said the terms of teacher contracts determining salaries on level of education and years of experience still apply to those on emergency certifications.

But union officials have noticed districts increasingly applying for emergency certifications in recent years, an indication that working in schools isn’t as attractive as it used to be, especially when an improved economy provides other options.

“It has a lot to do with the working conditions,” Wood said.

Sodorff said she has empathy for districts struggling to hire teachers. But the problem they’re facing isn’t going to go away and solutions are needed to ensure all children have qualified educators at the front of the class.

“I have a granddaughter who’s starting the second grade and I want the best teacher there is for her,” she said.

Herald reporter Geoff Folsom contributed to this story.

This story was originally published August 22, 2015 at 10:39 PM with the headline "Struggling to fill teaching positions, districts look to emergency hires."