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Sunday, July 01, 2001
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal EDUCATOR SHORTAGE: The Search for Teachers Clark County schools face a coming crisis By LISA KIM BACH and NATALIE PATTON
REVIEW-JOURNAL
The challenge: recruitment. As the national pool of qualified teacher candidates shrinks, the Clark County School District's appetite for professional educators is expanding. In a worst-case scenario, that convergence of circumstance may mean local schools open in August with 500 unfilled teaching positions. The problems: retention, compensation and working conditions. The Clark County Education Association, which represents district teachers, asserts that the district isn't doing enough to keep current teachers. Up to 20 percent of new hires leave Las Vegas schools by their third year of employment. Teachers themselves complain about mediocre pay, a lack of respect for the field and classes that are simply too crowded to manage effectively. The solutions: It depends on who is asked. This is the first year district recruiters will cast their nets abroad, seeking special education teachers, bilingual psychologists and speech therapists in Canada and Mexico. Local universities also have partnered with the district to offer a limited number of options to help midcareer professionals and stay-at-home parents with college degrees become teachers. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas has offered to send as many as 200 of its Education College seniors into classrooms this fall as long-term substitutes who would receive college credit for student teaching. In the just-completed legislative session, Nevada lawmakers even changed state law to make it possible for retired teachers to return to the classroom without losing their pensions. As a last resort, the Clark County School District this fall may be forced to call upon licensed but nonteaching employees working in other areas and reassign them to the classroom. Only one thing is certain among the chorus of voices speaking out on the teacher deficit: No one knows exactly what it will take to turn the shortage around. Former Superintendent Brian Cram foresaw the teacher crunch on his way out in 2000, identifying it as a crisis area for the district and its future leadership. New Superintendent Carlos Garcia inherited the problem when he was hired as Cram's successor and made teacher recruitment a priority for himself and his staff. "The problem is getting scarier as time goes by," Garcia said. "I've seen worse in California, and we definitely don't want to go there. It may get to the point where we don't have the staffing to open new schools. We just don't want to have that discussion." Garcia said the 15 school openings planned for the 2001-02 academic year are not in jeopardy. Staffing shortages generally appear first at low-performing schools, which have higher rates of teacher turnover. In the past, teacher shortages have forced some schools in urban neighborhoods to use substitutes and long-term substitutes, who may have little expertise in the subject area, especially math and science. The magnitude of this year's shortage and its effect on the quality of education in Clark County won't be clear for several weeks. Recruitment challenges This hiring season has been one of the most sluggish ever for Clark County and districts nationwide. Government projections show U.S. schools will need about 2 million new teachers over the next decade. It's a deficit that has district recruiters scrambling to keep qualified, licensed educators in front of the area's 231,000 students. That feat will require signing an estimated 1,600 new teachers by August. As of the end of June, about 1,221 job offers had been made, said George Ann Rice, the district's assistant superintendent of human resources. Of those, 224 were rejected. The rest are still pending or have been accepted. She plans to do everything possible to avoid having 500 teacherless classrooms in the fall, although she won't be sure where things stand until the first week of August. "I will be very frustrated and crushed if that comes true," Rice said. "But I will not be surprised." Principals who are sent out as recruiters do their best to make the most of local enticements. In winter, when Ken Fowler courts teacher candidates at job fairs in cold climates, he makes a point of posting the current Las Vegas weather conditions over his booth -- "Sunny and 87 degrees." It makes people laugh, and it attracts individuals who might otherwise pass by without a second glance, he said. In June, state legislators approved $2,000 signing bonuses for new Nevada teachers, but for most of the 2000-01 hiring season, the only perks recruiters could offer job-seekers were the weather, a good retirement plan, no state income tax and, according the the district's Web site, "competitive salaries." That's not enough, Fowler said, especially when recruiters at the booth across the aisle can offer higher salaries, student loan payoffs and relocation costs. "In some places, like Buffalo, we've gotten no applicants when before, we've had 60 or 70," said Fowler, principal of Rhodes Elementary School. "It's gotten to the point where we're prepared to make contract offers on the spot and the candidates are the ones saying, `We'll get back to you.' " Rice is more succinct in describing how the district's beginning salary of $26,847 and the sunshine incentive stack up against what other public school systems offer: "It's like going onto a battlefield with an empty gun," she said. With the market so tight in the United States, the district successfully lobbied state legislators this year to allow Nevada schools to recruit in other countries. Other urban districts, such as Chicago and New York City, already have taken their searches across borders and overseas. When Fowler went to Canada earlier this year to scout recruiting possibilities at Queen's University and the University of Toronto, he found that New York recruiters already had been there and hired 150 Canadian teacher graduates. "I really think it's going to be fertile territory for us," Fowler said. "They gave us a warm reception and said we were welcome to come back. I think we're going to be attractive to young people who are looking for adventure." International candidates will have to meet the same standards applied to U.S. applicants, Rice said. Those with bad references and lackluster student-teaching experiences won't find the door open. The same goes for those granted emergency credentials from districts such as Los Angeles. Clark County only accepts teaching credentials from accredited colleges or universities. Rice has been criticized by unsuccessful candidates in the past for adhering to stringent requirements while complaining of a teacher shortfall, but she makes no apologies for it. Lowering the standard for teachers lowers the quality of education in the classroom, she said. "We don't take just anybody," Rice said. "We haven't had to do that yet." The revolving door The starting annual salary for Clark County teachers with a bachelor's degree is $26,847. Those with additional college credits earn more, with a salary of $31,581 offered to first-year teachers with master's degrees. However, starting base salaries for teachers do not tell the whole story. If they continue with the district, teachers step up in the district's pay scale and make an extra $1,200 a year for the next six to 11 years. For example, first-year teachers who start this year at $26,847 would make $34,203 in their seventh year of service, according to the district's salary scale. First-year teachers who start out at $31,581 with a master's degree would make $43,841 at the start of their 11th year. Step increases top out at varying levels depending on completed college-level course work. They would be supplemented by cost-of-living increases and bonuses that fluctuate annually and are negotiated by the teachers union. A perennial area of controversy is how much experience the district will credit to new hires -- currently, a teacher can only bring in five years of experience, no matter how long they've taught in other districts. Rice said the issue is a financial one. Changing that policy would not only result in paying more to teachers new to Clark County, it would mean crediting past hires with more experience and moving them up the pay scale, too. It's something Rice said would cost millions of dollars. "If you look at what's typical around the country, to be competitive, we have to start at over $30,000," said John Jasonek, executive director of the Clark County Education Association. "We need to raise the base salary. There are a lot of other places for teachers to go to." Jasonek doesn't get any disagreement from the district. "Our salaries aren't competitive," Garcia said. "We need to recognize that that's a draw. I think we've made a good start with the Legislature approving teacher bonuses, but we need to do more." Jasonek also was critical of the district practice of putting the newest teachers in the most challenging schools. A 23-year-old from the Midwest who is shaped by middle-class comforts may be shell-shocked after landing in a classroom where most of the students live in poverty and struggle with academic and social challenges. Gene Hall, Education College dean for UNLV, concurred. "There's no other country in the world that treats a beginning teacher as badly as we do," Hall said. "If we (at Education College) didn't scare them out beforehand, the first year of teaching should do it. We put them in the ugliest situations, the most undesirable classrooms. We give them the most difficult kids." Clark County teachers receive benefits on top of straight salaries, including: the district's annual contribution of 18.75 percent of a teacher's salary into the state's retirement plan; full coverage of health insurance premiums; life insurance; and up to 18 paid days off, including 15 sick days. Teachers are vested in the retirement plan after working five years, but recruiters said a good pension is a hard perk to sell to 20-something teacher college graduates. "They aren't thinking that far ahead," Fowler said. "They're looking at annual salary." Teacher salary isn't just a local discussion. During a May visit to Las Vegas, U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige said teachers across the nation are underpaid, a condition that undoubtedly dissuades some people from choosing teaching as a profession. "I think that's one of the keys," Paige said after touring Hyde Park Middle School. "But I don't think it's the only key, by any means." Jasonek concurred. Teachers in Clark County need stronger professional development, a more supportive administrative structure and more opportunities to connect with each other. If the district addressed those kinds of retention issues, the need to recruit would lose some of its desperate edge, he said. "The district wouldn't have to hire half the people it hires if it just kept half the people who leave," Jasonek said. "They're losing about 20 percent of their teachers by the third year. If this were a business, a business would cringe." Rice is well aware of the turnover rates. The district's resources for teacher support are limited, she said, and Human Resources focuses on providing assistance to teachers in their first year. Rice said she would jump at the chance to do more if the resources become available. "Generally, if we can keep teachers into the fourth year, we know we've got them," Rice said. Alternative routes The nation's education czar urges public school systems and universities to be more creative in seeking potential teachers. "We've got to broaden the pool from which we recruit teachers," Paige said. "We've got to get universities to be a little more aggressive about getting people into the teaching profession." It's a conclusion at which Clark County has already arrived. In June, the district began screening applicants for a new teacher training program aimed at enlisting stay-at-home parents with college degrees. Nova Southeastern University is the district's partner in the program, which is expected to put new teachers into district classrooms in 2002. The program expands the limited opportunities for interested individuals who want to make a quick transition into teaching. The district also works with UNLV in two other one-year licensure programs designed to produce teachers specializing in bilingual and special education. The programs are small and open only to those selected by the school district. A fourth program, the Urban Teacher Partnership, has been put on hold by UNLV for at least a year while university officials evaluate the program and plan for its possible return as soon as fall 2002. It was designed to prepare teachers for the challenges facing schools in poorer neighborhoods. "The teacher shortage is not going to disappear overnight," said Daneen LiCausi, a fast-track UNLV graduate who becomes part of the solution in August as a first-year teacher at Crestwood Elementary School. "It's something that's going to come back year after year." LiCausi, a former hotel sales manager at the MGM Grand, took "the leap of faith" into teaching in summer 2000. She hoped to find greater professional and personal fulfillment in the classroom. The move has cost the 36-year-old a year of lost wages and, when she begins teaching full-time, will mean a $20,000 cut in annual pay when compared with her old salary. "The process of becoming a teacher does not lend itself to making that decision an easy one," LiCausi said. "People have to want to do it badly enough to make the sacrifices."
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