Gainesville City Schools is one of many school systems across the country that is lacking teachers. According to Gainesville City School System Deputy Superintendent Priscilla Collins, the school system needs to fill between six and seven vacancies.
“But we do have some leads out there where we're hoping that by August 9 when the kids come that we're fully staffed,” Collins said.
Math, science and special education are some of the most difficult vacancies to fill.
“Particularly high school math and science and special ed seems to be the areas that principals are calling us looking for,” said Kim Davis, director of clinical experiences at Brenau University’s College of Education. “But we've had principals calling looking for third grade and first grade, especially in rural areas. So it's real tough.”
However, Brenau University is doing its part to increase the number of future teachers. Davis said this year, the university will send over 200 undergraduate student teachers to schools across the state.
“Now they're not in Gainesville, Georgia,” Davis said. “ [At] Brenau we offer online programs, which means we have students all over the state. We have students at the Tennessee line, in Savannah, in Columbus, down at the Florida line… We have students everywhere. And we do a lot of our supervision by remote.”
Additionally, Davis said Brenau University has seen an increase in interns who have enrolled in the Master of Arts in Teaching program. These interns differ from student teachers in the fact that they did not study education during their undergraduate career.
In the past, school systems typically favored traditional education majors over interns.
“That's not the case anymore,” Davis said. “With the teacher shortage, we are seeing a huge increase in the number of people who are enrolling in our MAT program who have a degree in something else. And the school system is hiring them as a teacher. They help them get a waiver or a provisional certificate from the state. And then they get into our program and have to get a degree within two years.”
Interns are considered teachers once they are hired, and they teach their own class for an entire year.
“We take the assignments that the student teacher would do and spread it over a year,” Davis explained. “And we will provide that supervision by our college supervisors.”
Gainesville City Schools is also attracting more people to the teaching profession through its Aspiring Teacher Program. This program specifically targets existing paraprofessionals, who Collins compared to teacher assistants.
“We are recruiting our current paraprofessionals to try to get them to go into teaching,” Collins said. “We have some wonderful paraprofessionals in the classroom, and they have a great skill set.”
Another strategy to increase teachers is through Georgia House Bill 385, where retired teachers are allowed to return and collect pensions after at least a year off. However, Collins said Gainesville City Schools has not had any retirees take advantage of this opportunity yet.
“We just haven't been able to hire anyone to take us up on that offer yet,” Collins said. “So, maybe the pandemic still has a little bit to do with it.”
Davis said that retirees may hesitate to return to the classroom due to the numerous changes in technology. This reliance on technology was further exacerbated by the pandemic.
“So many veteran teachers had so much to offer,” Davis said. “They had so much experience and so many skills with relating to children and teaching content. But the way we were forced to go virtual really did not match their skill set. So some of them decided it was time to give it up. And I just find that so unfortunate.”
