The state and local region already have many initiatives, though. The Ohio Department of Higher Education announced $5.2 million to Ohio colleges and universities earlier this year to strengthen teaching programs.
Earlier this year, Wittenberg University was awarded a $130,000 grant to help address the teacher shortage in Springfield.
The funds, through the Ohio Grant Program, will be used for the university’s Springfield Teacher Education Pathway (STEP) project in collaboration with Clark State College and the Springfield City School District, said Brian Yontz, chair and associate professor of education at Wittenberg.
Yontz said the STEP project is a partnership between the three schools to “increase the diversity of a number of teachers Wittenberg prepares to be hired in the Springfield City School District and other school districts across the state.”
The goal of the project, which is in its first year, is to increase the overall number of teachers, with the hope to also increase diversity among educators.
Currently, 10.8% of Wittenberg’s education students and 12% of Clark State’s education students are non-white. In the Springfield district, 50% of students are not white and 146 teachers are not white, while 906 are white or Caucasian, and 91 were either unknown or not provided.
“We hope the STEP project provides opportunities for all Clark State students, especially students of color to finish their teacher preparation program at Wittenberg,” Yontz said.
Dayton Public Schools announced a plan to get high school sophomores to take classes in education, with an opportunity to go to Central State University for a bachelor’s in education and teach at Dayton Public.
“This is really important, to make sure that we’re attracting and keeping caring, qualified and committed people as educators,” said Scott DiMauro, Ohio Education Association president. “It’s essential for students’ success in the long run.”
Attracting enough teachers to the profession is proving to be a top priority for many school districts, along with hiring enough bus drivers and substitute teachers.
Dayton Public Schools has been holding monthly job fairs to attract more workers, especially bus drivers. DPS chief of human resources David Harmon said the district also held weekly walk-in interviews during the summer.
“Both efforts have been successful,” Harman said. “We’ve seen excellent candidates come from both avenues.”
Harmon said the district was particularly looking for more intervention specialists (those who teach special education) and bus drivers.
Research from Brown University questions exactly how many K-12 teachers quit during the pandemic, arguing the data isn’t good enough to say exactly how many school teachers left. But it’s clear that there’s been a decline in the number of people going into the teaching profession, and many current teachers are frustrated with the teaching climate.
Ohio Department of Higher Education data shows a decline in the percentage of people getting degrees in K-12 education from public colleges. That number dropped from 9.6% of all bachelor’s degrees awarded in Ohio public universities in 2009 to 6.3% by 2018.
In that span, the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded across all fields rose from 38,493 to 49,963. But the number of education degrees went in the opposite direction — from about 3,700 a year through 2014, into a year after year decline that hit 3,180 in 2018.
Special education teachers and those who teach STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) are particularly needed, according to ODHE.
The Springfield effort will invest in students who first enroll at Clark State to complete their Associate of Applied Science (AA) in Education, transfer to Wittenberg’s teacher education program, and then become employed by the Springfield district or others in the state for at least three years after graduation. Students who come from Clark State with a 2.5 GPA and positive recommendations from their professors will be directly admitted to Wittenberg’s Teacher Education Program.
Beginning in spring, students who are enrolled in their final year of the AA program at Clark State will be informed of this project and given information on how to continue toward becoming a teacher at Wittenberg, with the first participants beginning in fall.
Each participant in the STEP project in 2022-23 and 2023-24 will be given an annual scholarship toward Wittenberg tuition and fees, including a guarantee for students who remain enrolled in the teacher education program beyond the summer of 2024 to be provided an equivalent scholarship until their program is completed.
The management team for the STEP project will include one person from each school, and will meet three times a year to assure the program processes are completed.
Here are some of the local and state initiatives to get more people interested in teaching:
- ODE continues to develop the Human Capital Management Resource Center, which provides guidance and tools for district administrators and central office staff to attract, hire, retain and support teachers and other educators.
- With the Diversity Recruitment Educators Association for Miami Valley, or D.R.E.A.M, any district in the area that wants to work together to recruit more teachers of color to the profession could do so. The initiative has a $70,000, three-year grant for the project.
- The Montgomery County Educational Service Center has a centralized system where any candidate can apply to multiple jobs in more than 70 districts and county education service centers at the same time, through the same portal.
- Ohio recently reduced the requirements for a person with a lapsed license to return to the workforce. Renewing a lapsed Professional License now requires nine semester hours, reduced from 12 semester hours. Teachers with a license lapsed for more than one year who find employment can be issued a one-year license valid for teaching in the same manner as their previously held licenses. While employed, teachers complete reduced requirements to reinstate their professional license.
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