Many districts in Utah are facing a distinct issue as schools throughout the nation struggle with a teacher shortage: hundreds of open positions for paraeducators, cafeteria workers, aides, and other support staff. In a statement through email, Canyons director of communications Jeff Haney said, “We’ve rarely had such a tiny amount of our support employees.” “Not having adequate support staff makes running a school exceedingly challenging.
As a result, current employees must take on more duties, which raises the risk of burnout and termination. While there are only a few unfilled apprenticeship positions in many districts, the state as a whole has hundreds of auxiliary job openings. In the Granite School District, there are 177 job openings, 81 of which are for paraeducators and teaching assistants. The district has roughly 50 jobs in nutrition services, according to Granite’s spokesman Ben Horsley.
Even before the coronavirus epidemic, according to Horsley, Granite had a problem filling paraeducator positions, so that number has constantly gone up. According to Renée Pinkney, president of the Utah Education Association, there is a national shortage of support workers, which is placing pressure on those who teach larger groups.
You simply don’t feel like you’re meeting the goals that have been established by the tailored educational plans for students with special needs or for multilingual learners, in addition to the expectations that you have for yourself, Pinkney said. The bottom line is that there are teachers who believe they are just not being supported.
Many Utah school districts had trouble finding replacement instructors during the first two years of the pandemic and raised their pay rates as a result. According to Pinkney, compensation is a problem for paraeducators, as some have quit their professions in the last two years in search of positions with greater income.
How about the instructors?
According to its employment website, the Alpine School District, Utah’s largest school district with almost 81,000 kids, had 359 job opportunities last week. According to David Stephenson, the director of communications, Alpine is primarily focused on filling positions for bus drivers, nutrition service providers, and teaching assistants. She also has about 100 openings for paraeducators, which she anticipates filling soon.
These paraeducators support other kids with special needs, students who speak several languages, and students with disabilities in the classroom. According to Stephenson, some of those openings may already have been filled but remain on the premises. He stated in an email that “it’s typical for this time of year.” The bulk of teaching posts have been filled, which is fantastic news because teachers will be present in the classrooms on the first day of classes.
We matched those figures the previous year. Alpine and Granite both stated that they do not have a pressing need for teachers. Additionally, just a few substitute students will be enrolled in classes at the beginning of the academic year in both the Canyons and Ogden school districts.
As of August 15, according to Jer Bates, the organization’s director of communications, Ogden required six more teachers. According to Bates, the district has candidates going through the recruiting process, but they might not be formally announced until the first day of classes.
Canyons have a teacher for every K–12 general education classroom, but three replacements were hired earlier this year to cover positions that call for a special education specialist. When there was a replacement shortfall the previous year, Haney stated, “we reassigned office workers to cover those roles.” The same is true for all other roles, too. We are taking the necessary steps to keep the schools open.
Attempt your best.
According to Malia Hite, executive coordinator for educator licensure at the State Board of Education, Utah is seeing some consequences of the nationwide teacher crisis, such as B. an increase in underqualified teachers and higher class sizes. The number of teachers quitting their jobs at the end of the most recent school year increased by 1.8% in Utah, according to the Licensing Office.
The shortfall is prompting state officials to think “innovatively” about teacher education, she added, so there is some good news. Utah’s educator licensing was restructured, allowing local school boards to license instructors, allowing educators to teach without having completed a preparatory program as long as their district offers them additional assistance and mentoring.
The switch to competency-based teacher preparation is “one of the largest adjustments,” according to Hite. “This means people don’t have to finish a regimented list of college courses and tests, which is sometimes a costly hurdle, to prove they have the knowledge, abilities, and motivation to be teachers. According to Pinkney, teachers always look forward to the start of a new school year, but as additional responsibility is added to their plates to replace vacancies, that joy may wane.
According to Pinkney, “there’s always just a belief that we’re going to go in and be extremely cooperative with our peers, that we’re going to go in and change lives, that we’re going to be able to alter the lives of our children.” You begin to understand that you’re trying your best as the year goes on and you receive insufficient help.
