Teacher Shortage Squeezes NJ Schools; Pilot Program Aims To Draw More

NEW JERSEY — It’s a challenge every school district in New Jersey is facing: finding certified teachers to fill openings created as teachers retire.

In many districts, the crunch is being felt in math and the sciences, but the squeeze is being felt in nearly every subject area and grade level, officials say.

“We used to get a hundred applicants for a grade 3 position, now we get six,” Brick Township Superintendent Thomas Farrell said at recent Board of Education meeting in that district, in response to a question about increasing the diversity of the district’s teaching staff.

Farrell said WIlliam Kleissler, the human resources director in Brick, is reaching out to multiple sources to find candidates to increase both the pool of candidates and the diversity of the staff, but it is constant challenge.

The trouble is the number of people in colleges seeking to become teachers continues be a third of what it was 10 years ago – a number that simply can’t keep pace with the rising retirements that have been happening in the last few years, experts say.

The number of teachers leaving their careers in New Jersey has been increasing, in part as a result of the pandemic. Some left due to illnesses – both from contracting COVID and from health conditions that put them at higher risk of complications from COVID. Some left simply due to the stresses the pandemic created. Others have retired or left the profession because of the current political climate that has attacked teachers, and because of concerns about safety from school shootings.

Those departures come as the number of new teacher candidates fell below 3,000 in the 2018-19 school year, and inched up only slightly in 2020, according to a June 2 report by New Jersey Policy Perspective, a nonprofit nonpartisan organization that studies key issues in the state.

Colleges and universities in New Jersey also awarded a record-low number of teaching degrees in 2020, the report said.

Those figures, which have been falling for several years, are why the state is rolling out a pilot program that will allow people with workplace experience to seek teacher certification through the state’s alternate route program even if their standardized test scores or grade-pount averages to not reach the minimum levels, an NJ.com report said.

That pilot program, which is set for 118 schools for the 2022-23 school year, allows a waiver of one eligibility requirement, while they take courses and undergo mentoring designed to help them become certified teachers.

The five-year pilot program will award limited certificates of eligibility to allow those going through the educator preparation program and certification courses so they can be in the classroom filling needed positions.

Teachers in the program will have two years of provisional teaching to help gain their standard certification.

The fee that many have said is a deterrent to people wanting to become certified educators remains in place, but state officials said they are encouraging school districts to find creative ways to help address the fees issue.

“The whole purpose of this is to bring more teachers into the fold,” said Kathy Goldberg, president of the state Board of Education, which approved the pilot program regulations on June 1.

School districts that have not signed up to participate can still do so and must go through an approval process.

Teachers with limited certification will not be able to move from districts participating to those that are not.

Andrew Mulvilhill, the board vice president, questioned whether the pilot program will mean New Jersey will have teacher candidates who are weaker.

“We have seen longstanding barriers to very qualified educators that this pilot looks to rectify that,” said Julie Bunt, the state education department’s acting chief of staff. She said the requirement of the districts to provide mentoring and support the new teachers and the fact that the program leads to a standard certification addresses that.

“It’s about flexibility and the ability to be responsive,” said Angelica Allen-McMillian, the acting commissioner of education.

“We implemented a system of alternate route years ago,” she said, noting that move received significant pushback, but has been shown to be a valuable addition to the teaching ranks. “Many individuals have been quite successful coming to education from another career.”

“Providing the flexibility … for individuals who are close (on a test score) and proven they have the ability to be successful in a school environment … we are best meeting the times we live in,” she said.