Teacher shortage remains critical

Monday, Aug. 1, 2005 | 10:54 a.m.

The arrival of 34 teachers from the Philippines on Sunday will do little to ease a critical shortage of classroom talent for the Clark County School District.

With the 2005-06 academic year starting Aug. 29, the district is still short as many as 400 full-time teachers with many of the vacancies in traditionally hard-to-fill subject areas such as special education, science and mathematics.

"I've been down here in personnel for five years and I've never seen it like this," said Jo Anne Schlekewy, director of licensed personnel recruiting for the district. "It's scary to think about what we're going to open up with, the number vacancies we're going to have in high-need areas."

The majority of the vacancies are at the secondary school level and in special education, she said.

States across the country are competing fiercely for an ever-dwindling pool of special education teachers, many of whom are able to "write their own tickets," Schlekewy said.

"There are states that are paying a lot more and we don't have that carrot to dangle," Schlekewy said.

What the district can offer, as approved by the state Legislature, is a $2,000 signing bonus for new teachers and retirement credits down the road to educators who remain in hard-to-fill positions serving at-risk students.

But the turnover rate for special education teachers nationwide is typically high which makes retirement credits less of an enticement, Clark County School Board member Sheila Moulton said.

While attending a recent conference sponsored by the Education Commission of the States, a clearinghouse funded by a coalition of the nation's governors, Moulton met officials from other school districts who said they're offering $5,000 signing bonuses for teachers in math, science and special education.

The new arrivals from the Philippines, recruited by the district during a first-ever foray overseas, will soon be joined by 14 bilingual teachers from Spain as well as several from Canada. The teachers were granted three-year employment visas and have all been licensed as full-time teachers by the Nevada Department of Education.

Moulton said while she accepted that the district's dire straits made international hiring a necessity she wanted reassurance that the teachers' English skills were up to par.

"I remember when my own kids went to UNLV and they had some foreign professors and could not understand them," Moulton said. "It's necessary that they (the international teachers) speak English very well and know their subject material."

The teachers from the Philippines, who may soon be joined by nine compatriots, are all fluent in English, Schlekewy said. The Philippines is world's third largest English-speaking nation.

As for the teachers from Spain, several will be teaching mathematics where their bilingual skills are likely to be an asset, Schlekewy said.

In order to become a substitute teacher individuals must have a bachelor's degree or 62 college credits, at least six of which are in education. Substitute teachers undergo the same fingerprinting and FBI background checks as the rest of the district's employees, both full- and part-time.

Mary Ella Holloway, president of the Clark County Education Association, said she was distressed by the high number of vacancies with new teachers scheduled to report for work in just two weeks.

"We want fully qualified teachers in the classrooms, that's what's most important," Holloway said. "We could do a better job hiring right here in this country if we paid the teachers more money."

Holloway said she was also concerned that the district was depleting its reserves by putting substitutes in long-term contracts. It's already commonplace at schools for teachers to have to give up their prep periods in order to cover for a colleague who is absent for the day because substitutes aren't available, Holloway said.

"If they hire 500 subs in long-term contracts they won't be there to cover for teachers who are out because of illness or for in-service (staff development)," Holloway said.

While the teachers are paid for working the extra period they would rather have the prep time their contract calls for, Holloway said.

"They should be in their own classes preparing for their own students," Holloway said.