We have heard for months that conducting face-to-face classes in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic would aggravate the shortage of teachers in South Carolina. that we expected.
According to the South Carolina Educator Recruitment, Retention and Advancement Center’s Educator Supply and Demand Annual Report, our public schools started the fall semester with 699 teacher slots, up from 556 already disruptive last year.
But we didn’t have those extra slots because teachers decided to drop out en masse because of the concern that they would be exposed to COVID-19, as some teachers have been warning. In contrast, fewer teachers left the classroom this summer than last summer.
Instead, school districts increased the number of teaching positions faster than new teachers could keep up. Although schools started the year with 143 more places than in 2019, they also had 2,600 additional places to fill. This means that, in fact, there were 2,457 more teachers earlier this year than last year. That’s almost 5% more teachers working in our schools than in the previous year – more than enough to fill all classrooms if we hadn’t added all those virtual classrooms and reduced the size of face-to-face classes. With 54,961, this year started by far with the largest number of SC teachers since at least 2009, when the center began to include that number in its report.
It is a problem when we do not have a regular teacher in all classrooms. But the growth of our faculty in the worst circumstances is really something to celebrate. It is a great testament to the professionalism of our teachers, who recognize that children need them now more than ever and that they have stayed in the classroom or returned to the classroom or started teaching for the first time, despite their concerns.
It is also worth celebrating that South Carolina has so far managed not only to avoid dismissing teachers, but to add many more. This is not the case everywhere.
The New York Times reported last month that “public schools in many parts of the country are heading towards a financial chasm, as the coronavirus increases education costs, while tax revenue and student enrollment continue to fall.” And a report by the Pew Research Center found that public school jobs fell by almost 7% nationally from September 2019 to September 2020 (including 4% in South Carolina), although it noted that many of the layoffs “target bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers and other support staff instead of teachers ”and many of these jobs were being restored as schools returned to face-to-face classes.
Unfortunately, none of the good news from South Carolina means that we can stop worrying about attracting teachers to the profession or keeping them in the classroom. The uncertainty of the pandemic probably made many people with good benefit packages decide to stay in jobs they would not otherwise have; this uncertainty is expected to diminish as vaccines reduce the spread of COVID-19 and teachers will begin to focus again on the lack of respect and low pay that has led many to drop out.
It doesn’t necessarily mean that we don’t have a teacher supply problem right now, or we won’t be in the spring.
The report’s author, Jennifer Garrett, noted that “the combined effects of the pandemic” may have led to more exits after districts completed their surveys, so she plans to do another survey in early 2021.
But a spokesman for state superintendent of education Molly Spearman told us that while he was not surprised by the increase in the number of teachers, given the demand for online learning and smaller classroom sizes and $ 300 million in extra funding, “ When you see the 2,600 vacancies added and considering that amount together with the number of vacancies, it was a surprise that we were not in a worse position with the faculty. “
In fact, a surprise. And pleasant, for a change.
