Grow Your Own - Addressing the K-12 Educator Shortage

The number of new teacher candidates enrolling in preparation programs was decreasing prior to the pandemic. The pandemic has increased the rate of teachers leaving the profession. It has been a rough two years even though the current school year was supposed to be a return to ‘normal.’ Yet after the Omicron wave, everything got more challenging making the return to full-time, in-person learning after a year and a half even harder than expected. Staff shortages and students’ social emotional welfare made readjustment challenging. Substitute teachers were hard to find. There simply were not enough adults in many schools this year. The New Hampshire Union Leader published the story, Teachers retiring, but not as many as feared,” on June 27. 

“By the middle of the year, teachers said they were feeling burned out. A national survey of teachers published in late January, commissioned by the National Education Association, one of the two national teachers’ unions, reported that more than half of teachers were thinking seriously about leaving the profession.” (Union Leader) 

Nashua and Manchester School districts reported teachers leaving at the end of this year were younger and more experienced teachers. In addition, according to Carl Ladd of the NH School Administrators Association, 20% of administrative leadership is turning over this year. This loss directly impacts the ability for new teachers to be well supervised and mentored. 

The TRRE Advisory Board meeting on June 9 highlighted two initiatives that have potential to keep significant aspects of residency programs going in New Hampshire, providing hope for the future. 

The Littleton School District (SAU 84) will host the first six participants in their Special Education Residency established in partnership with Plymouth State University (PSU) this year. Superintendent Bill Hart, set out to reduce barriers to recruiting new highly qualified teachers to Littleton. He and Kristen Moreland, Director of Teaching and Learning for the district, reached out to the local community and the local school board to support starting a residency model program. They secured affordable housing for program participants and creatively funded a full tuition scholarship and $10,000 stipend through a combination of internal resource allocations and a 3-year federal grant (ESSA). In partnering with PSU, they found a match with an existing one-year intensive masters degree in special education. Applicants to the program need a bachelor’s degree in education. Graduates of the program will be dually certified teachers in high demand. While there is no requirement for graduates to teach in Littleton, Superintendent Hart recognizes the benefit of having certified teachers as residents in the school, and the option to hire them if needed, was a ‘win-win’ for Littleton. 

TRRE also shared an opportunity for stakeholders to attend a ‘Grow Your Own’ accelerator event on June 21. The event was organized by stakeholders from the National Collaborative for Digital Equity, the US Department of Labor, universities and local businesses, among others, to address the ongoing critical teacher shortage in the state. An announcement from the US Department of Labor precipitated the interest in a Grow Your Own mode: the announcement in November of 2021 allowed teaching to become an ‘apprenticeable’ occupation meaning programs that train and provide workforce development opportunities for K-12 teachers are now eligible to access recurring funds to pay for on-the-job training aligned with instruction and mentorship. 

Goals of the Grow Your Own Initiative stated on the June 21 call are to: 

• Filling positions creatively Diversifying the workforce to better serve diverse K12 learners and meet hiring needs. 
• 306s/ED2  Strengthening modeling by preparation program faculty and their school partners (cooperating educators, mentors. clinical supervisors, etc.) of competency-based learning pedagogy and assessment. 
• School climate Strengthening the preparation of educators to foster a positive and inclusive learning climate in their classroom, school, online forums and other learning venues.
• Affordability  Restructuring preparation so that even the lowest-income candidates can complete their program mostly or entirely debt-free while earning a living wage and being free of "benefit-cliff" loss of public benefits. 
• Systemic digital equity  Equipping future educators and school leaders with the tools and skills they need to recognize when their students (and staff) are facing digital divide barriers to learning at home, school, online and in the community and know how to access systemic digital equity resources to overcome these barriers. 

View the Grow Your Own meeting here. 

Creating multiple pipelines and reducing barriers to access teacher certification for paraprofessionals, non-traditional students and teachers on site-based plans, and underrepresented communities is necessary to increase teacher recruitment. Addressing school climate, lowering stress and increasing job security, is crucial to teacher retention. 

A high-quality workforce is necessary for high level student growth and overall school effectiveness. Quality teaching requires skilled, experienced teachers who receive high quality mentoring and supervision. Promising practices include teacher residency programs, high quality mentoring and induction, and the Grow Your Own model. TRRE is optimistic that residency models and additional strategies will continue to address the New Hampshire K-12 teacher shortage.  

For more information on the Grow Your Own Model contact Robert McLaughlin or Mary Ford at the National Collaborative for Digital Equity. Email: rmclaughlin@digitalequity.us or mford@digitalequity.us 

For more information and technical assistance with NH Department of Labor apprenticeship programs, contact Wynn Young. Email: young.wynn.b@dol.gov