(upbeat music) - Hey, everyone.

This is Steve Adubato.

More importantly, this is Sean Spiller, who is the president of the New Jersey Education Association, also the mayor of my hometown.

Not originally 'cause I'm originally from Newark, but now, it's Montclair, where you're the mayor.

Good to see you, Mr. President.

- Great to see you always.

- We are here just hanging out at the NJEA Convention.

- Yeah.

- What's it feel like to be here?

- Oh, it's great.

It's great to be back and, you know, building on as we come outta the pandemic.

Certainly what we saw last year, but even more, the energy coming back, the people, it's great to see.

We know it's the largest professional development opportunity probably in the world for educators, and this is a great space to be in, and we're seeing the excitement.

- Sean, we're gonna talk about school violence just a moment.

Right outta the box, I wanna talk about the teacher shortage.

Task force just announced as we're doing this, in November of 2022.

This'll be relevant for a long time afterwards.

The governor has announced his task force to look at teacher shortage.

It's a national issue, but how does it affect us in New Jersey, A, and B, what needs to be done?

- I'll work backwards.

The answer is we need to do everything.

It's a huge issue.

We've seen for the last decade now, the number of educators going through the teacher prep programs in New Jersey has been declining.

Another big problem we've seen, though, a lotta people talk about this in the context of the pandemic, thinking there's so many more people retiring, not really.

It's people leaving the career mid-profession.

- Mid?

Because?

- Mid, mid-profession.

Well, that's the issue, right, so we've gotta look at why is it that people aren't staying in?

And when we started to look at some of that data, and we polled our members.

We've asked, "What's going on?"

The inundation with paperwork and just things that keep you busy but don't have that relationship to your student success.

The stresses that everyone's facing.

We're short staff, so that means you're missing your prep period.

You're missing your lunch period to go cover a class to try and fill in for a colleague.

That adds more stress when you can't prepare for your classes.

You're being asked to cover more and more, right, so there's that added layer to it.

You're also talking about right now, a climate where you go to a board meeting.

It might be a tough situation.

- Let's talk about the.

Politics has always been.

Sorry for interrupting.

- Always, yeah.

- So politics has always been a part, but.

- Always.

- The level of politics, the level of intensity, the level of anger at school board meetings and directed toward public education has never been what it is, whether it's about critical race theory or the perception of what it is versus what it is.

Health/sex education courses, what it is and what the perception of what it is is.

What does that do to a teacher?

- Yeah, well, we're seeing it.

You leave the profession for many, and unfortunately, we see the stressors that those who still remain face.

It's a challenge.

You know, no one likes the acrimony you see.

We all are passionate about our kids, so that's a given, and we all want parents involved in our children's education.

That's top priority, but coming to a meeting, making accusations, wild accusations, attacking educators for teaching the curriculum that's their job to do.

- Attacking them personally sometimes?

- Yeah, often personally, often personally, and I think it's a space we've gotta get away from to say, "We all want what's best for kids here.

Let's come at it from that perspective and see how we can work together on issues," but if we don't change the climate, the very educators who've been doing a great job helping us have the number one schools in the nation are going to be leaving, and that's a big problem for all of us.

- Let me ask you this: in other states, I think in Florida, possibly in Texas as well, there's an effort to change the process of becoming a teacher, the certification process.

- Yes, yes.

- Should it be easier to become a public school teacher in the state of New Jersey, and if so, what would that mean?

- Yeah.

The answer's yes and no.

Yes, if there are barriers or obstacles that slow people down to get in who should be getting in, meaning right now, we've got student teaching that goes a year long.

You look at any internship or anything to on-board into a profession, no one has to work for a year, not get paid.

(laughs) Let me repeat that.

Work for a year.

- They don't get paid.

- Don't get paid, right.

Do that for a year, and then come on in.

That's a barrier for a lotta people.

How do you do that, right?

No other thing has these exams after exams after exams after you've passed a college preparation program, after you've got, you know, success in high school and beyond, now, you've got all these other tests, which all cost money, that you've gotta pass to come into the profession.

These are barriers that yes, we should eliminate.

We still, at the state level, have residency requirements.

You can't become an educator if you don't live in New Jersey, right.

We're trying to attract people.

We should eliminate those types of barriers, and there's plenty of other things, but it doesn't mean we should do what we are seeing in a lot of other states, which, they're literally just throwing up their hands and saying, "Anyone can come in and teach, literally anyone."

- That's a problem.

- That is a problem.

You don't maintain your top schools in the nation if anyone can just come in and do it.

- But Sean, also make it clear, your background as an educator, beyond being the president.

- Yeah, I'm high school science teacher for many, many years, and, you know, that's the passion people come in with, but yes, you want make sure people are coming in who are competent, that know it, but also know how to be an educator.

You know, just because you know content doesn't mean you're gonna be able to connect with the kids or be an effective teacher, so we've gotta maintain high standards, but we do need to eliminate barriers.

- The other piece of this, some people think it's connected.

Some people don't, but school violence, mass shootings.

One of the people I'll be interviewing here at the convention is David Hogg, a survivor from Parkland, horrific Parkland murders, the horrible situation there.

David's one of the keynote speakers there, but school violence, shootings, mass murders.

First of all, is it overstated in any way?

B, is there a connection between that and teachers saying, "Hey, wait a minute, I'm tapping out."

- There's definitely a connection when you talk about the social and emotional health of both students and the staff who work in schools.

- Sure.

- I would say add to that the trauma, yes, from the shootings and the violence and the murders, but add to that the trauma of constantly having to drill, where you're told to hide in a corner, where you're told to be really, really quiet, where they don't tell you it's a drill because they can't, right?

They've gotta have you practice.

Someone shaking the door violently to even simulate somebody who's entered the building.

You don't know exactly what that is.

You don't know if it's real or not real.

You do that over and over and over.

I mean, the trauma that our students, that our staff are facing, the trauma from, of course, the violence that's actually occurring, it obviously takes a toll.

And to say that's our solution, you know, to keep hiding in corners versus let's get some logical, common-sense gun control, you know, gun reform packages that we know make sense, it's a shame we aren't getting there where we need to be as soon as possible.

- Well, along those lines, you know, the gun control, it's gun safety, gun control.

It's defined and framed differently by different people.

There are some who'll argue, "Let's just arm our teachers.

Let's give them an opportunity to protect themselves and their students."

You say?

- Terrible idea.

- Terrible?

- Terrible idea.

You know, first off, any educator I've talked to does not wanna be armed, right.

That's not our job.

That's not our role.

We know professionals, professionals who are trained in this: police officers, law enforcement, who do countless hours of training, who recognize the stress of a situation.

Even they, in high-stress situations, constantly will make an error, human error, right, will accidentally harm someone else.

The worst thing I can think of is a number of weapons, way more than we have now, in a school, sitting where?

On a teacher's desk?

In their pocket?

In a drawer?

Where, right?

And I know what that leads to, when you have more weapons around, more guns around, with close proximity to children.

- It will not.

Sorry for interrupting.

- No, no.

- It will not make it safer for those teachers - Will not.

- and those kids?

- No, I don't think so.

Not at all.

I think- - Can you envision yourself, as a science teacher, with that gun?

- No, I'd be terrified.

The power of a weapon to take a life sitting right there, having it there, I mean, it takes away from the learning environment first and foremost, but I would not want that near my students in any way, let alone the bigger problem after some period of time, forgetting you really have it in the proximity, and the student finding it or getting access to it.

It's not a good idea.

- Finally, on the issue of school violence, school shootings, you're not willing to accept that it's a part of educational life.

- No, not at all.

I gotta tell you, when I walked the floor here, and it was before, and we have service dogs that are here, right, emotional support.

- And some are from Parkland and Uvalde?

- Yes, yes, and you talk to, you know, the individuals with the animals, and certainly know what the animals themselves and their handlers and others have to go through, but the fact that we're trying to comfort students and more students and more students from these shootings, it's just heartbreaking, and that's not what we have to accept.

We can do better.

- Sean Spiller is the president of the New Jersey Education Association and the mayor of Montclair, and this is the 2022 NJEA Convention.

A lot of interesting and important things going on, the future of our kids, the future of our schools, future of education at stake.

Thank you, Mr. President.

- Thank you.

Thanks so much for having me.

- That's great.

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