The Kentucky General Assembly started the second part of its legislative session today, and it began by looking at Kentucky's teacher shortage.

The House Education Committee heard from the Commonwealth's top education official on the shortage.

Our Casey Parker Bell reports on what he says it will take to help fix the problem.

The reasons for this shortage are complex and longstanding.

Kentucky Education Commissioner Jason Glass testified to legislators about Kentucky's teacher shortage.

The state is now facing a teacher turnover rate of about 20%.

He says keeping teachers will take long term work on three specific issues.

At least in my estimation, it all comes down to these three things pay, support and respect.

And if we work on increasing total compensation support for our educators and respect for our educators, I believe we can begin turning the tide on this difficult issue.

Glass did not make specific recommendations to address the shortage in the meeting.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear has called for the General Assembly to increase teacher pay with money from budget surpluses and says Kentucky faces an 11,000 teacher shortage.

Commissioner Glass gave some context to that number.

The 10,800 or 11,000 number that's often bandied about represents the total number of openings over an entire year.

It doesn't represent the number of openings that we have at any one time.

Glass says the Kentucky Educator Placement service that tracks openings is older and does not provide real time data.

House Education Chairman James Tipton says Kentucky had about 1500 active vacancies as of January.

Legislators asked Glass how to attract more people into the classroom, and multiple legislators say lack of support with discipline is a major factor.

Driving teachers to quit.

State Representative Jennifer Decker quoted a study that says discipline is the number one issue for teachers.

Salary was not at.

It may have been third.

I think it was on farther down.

And then they went back to the same people and said, what if you had the salary you think is sufficient?

What would you do?

And they said, Quit because of discipline.

While pay may not be the primary driver, it is a factor and it is an important factor in how we attract and retain teachers.

And if we don't attend to total compensation, you will end up with predictable labor market issues.

But State Representative Stephen Riley, a former educator, says legislate should not dismiss the importance of pay to retaining teachers.

It's easy for people to say that pay is not an issue when they're not the one receiving the check.

Teachers and educators have families and they want to provide for their families.

For Kentucky addition, I'm Casey Parker Belt.

Thank you, Casey.

State Representative James Tipton, who chairs the House Education Committee, says he's working on legislation to address the teacher shortage and could file a bill by the end of the week.