Class sizes are expanding. Course offerings are dwindling. Emergency teaching certifications are skyrocketing. Substitute teacher pools are drying up, and the need for ESL and special education educators is growing exponentially. Pennsylvania and much of the country is suffering from a severe teacher shortage, leading districts to scramble to fill critical positions. Budget cuts, stagnant salaries, burnout, hurdles in the certification process, the escalating cost of a college degree, population shifts, and more have all contributed to the shortage.
For some school districts in Western Pennsylvania, addressing the educator shortage starts at home.
At the Gateway and Keystone Oaks school districts, “grow your own” programs teach high school students about the teaching field, allowing them to hone their skills in classroom internships and even earn college credits before matriculating to college.
Mark Spinola, a social studies teacher at Gateway since 2001, has headed its high school’s Teacher Academy course for three years. At Keystone Oaks, Emily Brill heads Keystone Oaks’ Educators Rising program and after-school club, which just launched this school year. Over a dozen schools statewide have launched similar programs.
“It’s the thing in my career that I’m the most proud of, without a question,” Spinola said of his Teacher Academy course. “To help develop students to perhaps someday do what I’m doing now feels like it’s something really important to contribute.”
Planting the Seed
According to Teach Plus, a nonprofit education advocacy group, school districts across Pennsylvania reported 2,000 teacher vacancies and a 6 percent teacher attrition rate, as of October 2023. It’s a burgeoning trend; Spinola became aware of similar data three years ago that shed light not only on a teacher shortage in education, but particularly a shortage of diversity in education.
Spinola was moved by the data, so much so that he came to Gateway administration with a plan to craft this teaching course, knowing that a “grow your own” teacher program in a diverse district like Gateway could be rather impactful. Administration gave him the go-ahead, and since then the course has only grown.
“It is self-evident. You look around and you just don’t see a lot of diversity in the profession. And it really hits home when you hear students talk about it, and what it means to them,” said Spinola. “It really touches you, when they talk about what it would mean to have someone who looks like them teaching them. It makes them feel like they belong.”
Brill, who leads a child development course at Keystone Oaks, signed up to start an Educators Rising program in her district, believing the course paired well with her subject field. During school hours, Brill leads the elective, which is geared toward upperclassmen. After school, she transitions Educators Rising into a club, giving high school students a chance to hone their skills and engage with the content.
“It builds on child development, but I also get students who don’t want to take child development who still have an interest in teaching,” said Brill. “I think a program such as this is a wonderful opportunity for those students to start focusing on their career like a lot of other students are doing in some of their programs.”
Gateway’s Teacher Academy has three levels, but began as a single course that produced three students who are now in college studying to be teachers. The first level is a seminar about education career possibilities, wages, how to interact with students, and how to develop a teaching persona. Eventually, students work on constructing and practicing lessons. The second level is a practicum where students dive deeper and eventually spend four weeks in classrooms, observing, and helping teachers. In the final iteration of the course, students spend 12 weeks interning and teaching in elementary classrooms.
Gateway partners with Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) and Carlow University, the latter of which provides college credits. IUP has helped purchase materials for the class and also brings professors and teaching students to talk to classes about what studying to be an educator might look like. Brill’s Educators Rising course follows similar content areas, and partners with Pennsylvania Western University to provide students credits upon completion of the course.
“I try to mirror a college course. If they choose to be an educator, they’re going to be comfortable going into that setting,” said Spinola. “Ultimately, they’re creating a portfolio not just of their philosophy for teaching, but practical plans and documentation that they can go to a college or a job and say they’ve got this experience of trying something in a real-world setting.
Like Spinola’s course, Brill too weaves in angles of diversity, bringing to attention the lack of diversity in the field, while also encouraging students to think outside of the norms they’ve been predisposed to believe.
At Gateway School District, DEI Coordinator Rhonda Threet, Ph.D., looks back on her discussions with students of color about their career plans. Some reject teaching as a possible profession because of their own experiences in the education system. “They’ve had some negative experiences and have seen the lack of teachers of color.” She went on to say that this is often generational. “I’ve heard parents tell me lots of times that their school experience wasn’t great. ‘I didn’t realize I could do x, y, z’ and ‘I wasn’t given those opportunities to believe that I could be anything that I wanted to be.’ It’s very disheartening.”
The hope—for Spinola and Brill—is not just to attract a greater and more diverse group of students to the field, but to prevent them from burning out, too.
“We’re seeing so many people come into the field who don’t have that background in education, and they don’t understand the true nature of the job and all that it takes from you,” said Brill. “I think giving students a stronger foundation to build those skills and understand what they need to succeed in the classroom is key, as well as preventing that burnout from happening.”