Teacher/Substitute Shortage a Strain in Washington State
OSPI has released their survey and its subsequent findings about teacher shortages in Washington State.
The survey
The findings.
From the survey:
This survey was distributed on November 11, 2015, to public school principals in Washington by the Association of Washington School Principals. As of the date of this report, 733 principals have responded of the estimated 2,100 principals, for a return rate of 35%. The survey was developed by OSPI, the Rural Education Center, PESB, AWSP, and ESD representatives. It was piloted with the Elementary School Principals’ Board of AWSP.
The first question sets the stage:
In fall 2015, were you able to employ all of your needed classroom teacher positions with fully-certified teachers that met the job qualifications (not including individuals with emergency certificates)?
The answer was yes but only by 55.3% versus no at 44.8%.
To another question about "your school's ability to hire candidates for your teaching openings," 23.8% said they were in "crisis mode - We cannot find qualified certificated candidates." (The "struggling but getting by mode"category was 68.9% and the "doing fine, no difficulty finding candidates" was 7.2%.)
The most difficult category to find certificated teachers was - no surprise - Special Education by far. The second most difficult category to fill was Seattle Schools Community Forum: Teacher/Substitute Shortage a Strain in Washington State: "
Big Education Ape: Teaching Vacancies and Difficult-to-Staff Teaching Positions in Public Schools http://bit.ly/1OfiOpg