Utah Experiencing Teacher Shortage

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    By Lance Hamner

    Kelly Chambers graduated from Utah State University with a degree in education. After teaching in Utah for three years, she left to teach science at a middle school in Oregon.

    “The pay is better, and there was nothing in Utah keeping me here,” Chambers said.

    Chamber”s story is typical here in Utah, as the state suffers from a growing teacher shortage. Though the problem is nationwide, Utah has been hit especially hard.

    “Everybody along the Wasatch front is feeling the decline in graduates from colleges of education,” said John Spencer, Alpine District”s human resource administrator.

    Colleges are not graduating enough people to fill the spots of teachers who are retiring, Spencer said. Another problem for the district is that many women who teach choose to exit the profession in order to start their families.

    “Also, many graduates we hire will teach for us but end up having to leave when their spouse gets a job in another area,” Spencer said.

    Gloria English, a student studying elementary education at UVSC, said it was likely she would teach in Utah until her husband graduates from college.

    “We”ll probably move out of state, so I can”t say I”ll be teaching [in Utah],” English said.

    Despite the shortage, English seems to be the exception.According to Susan Simmerman, the department chair of elementary education at UVSC, 95 percent of their students do choose to stay in Utah. Most of the students in the education program live in the area and want to stay here, Simmerman said.

    “Our local districts take everyone as fast as we can graduate them,” she said.

    This is good news for those graduating in education, but Utah schools are constantly fighting to recruit teachers.

    The Alpine District has taken a number of steps to entice teachers, including enhancing the entry-level salaries, offering an excellent benefits package, and placing an emphasis on recruiting, Spencer said. The competition for teachers has become fierce enough that the district hires pools of teachers on open contracts.

    “We will hire 160 to 180 teachers without putting them in a specific position so we can get them hired quickly,” Spencer said. As positions then become open, the early-hired teachers are placed in the available positions.

    Patti Harrington, Utah state superintendent of public instruction, said although the number of teachers has stayed the same, there is an increase of 15,000 students per year enrolling in the schools.

    “You combine that enrollment boom with an already tight teacher market and then make it worse with lower than average pay, and it”s a perfect storm waiting to happen,” Harrington said.

    Although teachers are needed in every area, math, science and special education are especially in need, Harrington said.

    “One way to alleviate this problem is to make it easier for people who are in other fields, such as lawyers or engineers, to get into teaching,” she said.

    To help tackle the teacher shortage, the State Board of Regents and State Board of Education created a special task force. The task force released a report in March that explained how the state has dealt with the shortage in the past and recommendations to fix the problem in the future.

    “In order to start the 2006-2007 school year, the gap was filled by recruiting out-of-state teachers, utilizing alternative certification teachers, and by convincing many of those who had left teaching, including retirees and substitute teachers, to accept regular teaching contracts,” according to the report.

    The report also recommends changing the school calendar to three semesters. This plan would allow the growing number of students to be spread throughout the school year without having to build more schools.

    The saved money would go toward teacher salaries, and taxes would then not have to be raised.

    “Increasing teacher pay is the central way you are going to solve much of this problem,” Harrington said. “Money isn”t the whole matter, but it is a good step.”

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