(exciting music) - Welcome to "At Issue."

I'm H Wayne Wilson.

Thank you so much for joining us for our conversation, this time about the shortage of teachers.

And there is a shortage.

Last summer, the summer of 2022, the Illinois State Board of Education estimated that the state had a shortage of 5,300, that number was just not teachers, it included administrators.

Tony Sanders, who's the new superintendent, last October, the state superintendent, last October, said that there were more than 3,500 teachers positions unfilled.

3,500 in the state of Illinois.

So we're going to be talking about a little bit of the problem, but mostly about the solution.

How do we fill all those positions short term and long term?

And to have that conversation, we've invited Dr. Marjorie Greuter.

She is the superintendent of East Peoria High School.

Thank you for joining us on "At Issue."

- Absolutely.

- [H Wayne] Mark Jontry is here.

Mark is the regional superintendent for four counties, that would include DeWitt, Livingston, Logan and McLean.

Thank you, Mark, for being here.

- Thank you.

- [H Wayne] And his counterpart is Beth Crider, she is the regional superintendent for Peoria County.

Thank you for being here.

- Thank you for having us.

- I threw out some numbers, I don't know that that means a whole lot to us because in the state of Illinois, 3,558 teachers last October a shortage, is there another way to measure that?

- H, I think when we're looking at our classrooms, the single most important factor is that teacher, right?

And so when you start to look at services to children, it becomes really important you have a highly qualified person there.

And when we're struggling to find that person to put in the classrooms, we have to come up with other solutions.

And sometimes that's just not what is best.

And so we're seeing key vacancies in areas of real need and that's special education, foreign languages, math and science where we used to have several applicants, sometimes we don't have any.

- None.

- None.

- Let me turn to Marjorie.

You deal with East Peoria High School?

- Yes.

- [H Wayne] What kind of impact?

How many applicants compared to 10 years ago?

- About 10 years ago, we would see maybe 300 applicants for some of the more popular positions like social studies.

And we see, you know, 10 to 20 now in the popular areas.

In the areas that are high need, we are seeing the zero applicants for some of our key positions.

We have a special ed opening right now that we have zero applicants for next year.

And that's a real impact for our special education students.

- No applicants.

- None.

- [H Wayne] Mark, your take on how severe is the shortage?

- It's significant.

You know, it comes down to, it's a result of a combination of things.

We've had fewer students graduating high school that choose to go into the profession.

Our college prep programs saw a continual decline in completers, enroll (indistinct) completers over a six to eight 10-year period until the last couple years when they started to arch back up.

But it really manifests itself in either classes not being offered in school or class sizes being much larger or an individual teaching those classes that isn't necessarily certified to teach in that content area, especially at the secondary level.

So at the end of the day, our students are the losers when it comes down to it.

- You have a lot of rural areas in the four counties that you oversee.

Is there a more severe shortage when it comes to the smaller rural school districts than maybe a Peoria Public School or a Unit 5 in Normal?

- There certainly is.

You know, in many instances we might have a specialist in a content area, say science, for example.

They might be one or two people, might be the entire department at that high school.

And if we can't fill those positions, then those students are gonna be looking at alternative options, whether it's online, or going to another school for their science.

But inevitably what happens is when our larger districts have vacancies in this environment where there's so few available applicants, they're often getting their new teachers from existing school districts that have some level of experience.

And so there just isn't enough applicants to backfill those positions in our rural areas when the compensation is less obviously and it's not as large of a building to work in.

- So the small school districts are sometimes a training ground for the larger school districts?

No question.

Marjorie, you're shaking your head absolutely.

- Yes.

Yes.

Most of the hires that I've made in the last probably three to four years have come not straight out of college, but from other districts, either in our area or moving into our area.

And it puts us in an awkward position with our leadership peers, because we all know each other.

We all are comrades, we're all facing the same problems.

And there is a level of guilt associated with it until you look at, I've gotta do what's best for my students.

- And the end goal is to do what's best for the students.

But that idea of I'm poaching a teacher from a nearby district.

- It is difficult.

It is difficult and it is heart-wrenching sometimes knowing that the district that you're taking this person from is also going to see this same lack of applicants for that very same position.

- Absolutely.

- And the closer the school year gets, this is what we're seeing more and more now, the closer the beginning of the school year gets, the more I would cutthroat the competition becomes to higher people for those openings.

- I wanna talk a little bit about the reason for the shortage.

And it's not new.

I mean, 10 years ago there was a shortage, but it seemed like in recent years, it's been exacerbated.

But I'd like to talk a little bit about the reasons behind the shortage and then move to solutions or possible solutions that might help both short and long term.

And Marjorie, I wanna stay with, keep the conversation with you in regards to when you are short in a particular discipline, let's say math as an example.

- Sure.

- And if you don't have that teacher, do you add another another class to existing math teachers?

- Usually that's how we've had to, in fact, we've had math openings the last couple of years.

And so what we have had to rely on is our existing teaching staff taking another class into their teaching load to give them from anywhere from 150 to 165 students each semester.

And they give up their prep period to do that.

They're compensated, yes.

But what I'm seeing is the compensation isn't the factor anymore.

It's the time.

It's the effort and the energy that it takes to take on another 25 to 30 students and to give up that time during the day for planning, for prep, for meeting with students to help them with what they're struggling with.

It's a time factor that is simply burning people out.

- Let's talk about burnout, because burnout leads to I'm going to do a different job.

- It does.

Burnout is one of the biggest reasons that teachers are giving whether they're three to five years in it or even really we're starting to see more and more of our veteran teachers, if you will, say, I've had enough because of the burnout because whether it's additional, taking on additional course loads or it could be just honestly some of the narrative, some of the environment that they're dealing with about what is or isn't actually going on in their classroom.

When you talk about external forces coming to board meetings and making accusations and things like that and teachers are like, this isn't worth it, you know?

And so they're burning out on those issues and so they're looking at a different career that's less stressful and choosing to just walk away from the profession.

- That's an interesting aspect that I hadn't really considered, the burnout, yes, that just stands out.

But external forces, you know, it seems more and more that parents are going to school board meetings and making accusations, et cetera, sometimes justified.

But why submit yourself to a job that can expose you to criticism, unnecessary criticism when you could go work for a private company?

- Well, social media definitely exacerbates that.

Today is school board election day, people are out casting votes today for members of school boards and across the state of Illinois, you're seeing more contentious board races than you have ever seen.

And that is a lot of the polarization of language that you're hearing most of the time via social media of things that are perceived that are happening in classrooms.

And I would just submit, please come see, come see what we're doing, see what's going on in our classrooms before those accusations are made because that does contribute to some of the burnout that our teachers are feeling.

- Beth mentioned that today is election day, not when this airs, when it was taped it was election day April 4th.

We're taping a little in advance but with regard to that, just real quickly, I mentioned Unit 5 has a very important election today as we tape this, what happens if that referendum fails?

- Well, in the case of Unit 5, they've articulated if their referendum to, for their tax rate fails, they're gonna be in the position to eliminate numerous teaching positions, eliminate all extracurriculars, essentially at the junior high level as well of all their freshman sports.

And so when you hear that and see that and if that does come to fruition, obviously that's gonna make it much more difficult for that district to provide a well-rounded education for those students.

And a lot of what we find is successful when we're dealing with students is providing them opportunities, not only opportunities in the classroom but opportunities outside of the classroom, be they athletics or activities and things like that.

But the end game for Unit 5 is if the school board does follow through with their proposed cuts, is that there will be larger class sizes and potentially fewer course offerings.

- And Unit 5 wouldn't be in a unique situation.

- Correct.

Different districts are gonna be in different spots with that going forward.

- Marjorie, you want to talk about filling positions because you can get qualified candidates on some topics but what if you don't have a qualified candidate?

You do have a candidate who is less than qualified.

Do you struggle with, I wanna offer this course, the students need this course, but this candidate isn't fully qualified in my estimation?

- Well, the nice thing is there are some opportunities for those that don't have that teaching license to come in and be a teacher while they are getting fully certified.

And we have had to hire some teachers who have turned out to be great teachers before they've actually had that certificate in hand that says, yes, I'm qualified.

But they have worked with students.

They are great, not only in their content knowledge because maybe they came from the business world.

Our current auto shop, our auto shop teacher came directly from being a mechanic.

Wonderful.

Packs his classes, has an overload every year because he's got the experience and the knowledge and he was able to get the certification while we utilized his services with our kids.

And it's been a benefit to them.

- Don't make the overload too much.

- No, I don't wanna burn him out.

- [Beth] Exactly.

- One more question about the cause of shortages and that we've talked about the shortage of teachers, there's a shortage of substitutes.

Is is there a way to, and I wanna move to solutions, is there a way to say, well, we can use substitutes to fill some of these positions, but we're limited in how we can use those substitutes?

- When you take substitutes and fill positions because you didn't have a qualified applicant, you take the best of the best of the substitutes and you diminish the pool of who's available.

And the way that contributes to the shortage or what I would offer is a keepage problem of keeping teachers in the profession is that when I don't feel well and I'm worried about my class, there isn't a substitute to take it, I can't take a day and go get professional learning and increase my knowledge base and become a better teacher like I used to do because there's just no one to come in and take my class.

So substitute teaching becomes an incredible part of how the whole engine works in a school.

And beyond substitute teachers, it's all the positions that support teachers, paraprofessionals, bus drivers, recess duty, you name it.

Any position in a school right now is seeing a shortage and that contributes to the load that teachers and administrators feel.

- Retention, Mark.

This is a problem that you alluded to real briefly, but you said that teachers aren't sticking around as long as they used to.

Part of the problem, I mean, this is due to the burnout, et cetera.

How do we go about incentivizing teachers to say this really is a good career.

You've you've made it 10 years, make it 30.

- Investing in mentoring programs is really what we need to do and provide those supports whether it's existing staff members in the building or other staff that can come in and provide that real sound mentoring for those, especially those teachers in their first three to five years.

That's where we see the statistics show that a lot of teachers that leave the profession initially do so in the first three years or so because they just don't feel supported.

And sometimes that's really not the fault of administration or anybody because administrators only have so much time themselves in order to provide that support.

So if we can really develop mentoring programs which have existed, they just haven't been funded by the state.

And the state really needs to refocus their efforts, in my opinion, on more fundamental mentoring programs.

They do invest some money right now through the IA for one, but a lot of that mentoring is remote.

And I think there's no substitute for direct in-person mentoring as much as possible for those teachers to really sound off on what's troubling them, what they're struggling with, and getting that backup and that support.

Because if we don't, what we're seeing, we have a generation of teacher of people coming into the profession now that may not make a career out of teaching anyway.

They may be due 10, 15 years tops and then they're gonna move on to something else.

But I think if we can provide enough supports for them at the outset to where they really feel experienced and confident, we're much more likely to keep them longer term.

And so we really need to invest in that.

And when I say invest, we really need to invest in people, in paying people to provide those supports on a continual basis.

- Marjorie, have you used a form of mentoring to retain teachers?

- We do have a mentoring program for our early career teachers.

What we focus on for our tenured teachers or teachers that have been in for several years is it's a culture climate situation for us.

If the culture and climate of the building is good, our teachers are resilient and they will stick around and they will tough it out because it's we're all in this together and it's for the kids.

Where you start to see the the drop off and the leaving of the profession is those that don't feel supported and usually in some way that's related to the culture and climate of the building, of the district, of the area that you're in.

- Let me turn back to you, Mark, because she was talking about the culture and alluded to the building, let's use an example, Tri-Valley in Downs in McLean County.

That makes a difference in terms of maybe keeping a teacher or losing a teacher?

- No question.

And the culture and climate manifests itself in a number of ways.

First and foremost, it's really building leadership and district leadership.

And so it goes to the administrator that's setting the tone for that building, at the same time they're not doing it alone.

They're doing it in concert, in synchronous lockstep with their staff, especially their senior leadership staff.

Many of our buildings have a leadership team and collectively they agree on the goals for school improvement and what do we want to be able to provide for our students and what should a graduate such as a Tri-Valley graduate look like?

And we used, we're using Tri-Valley as an example because it's also a place that I know personally having taught there that also invested in infrastructure, in remodeling to create a really good learning environment through building renovations and things like that.

And having an appropriate learning space should not be underestimated when it comes to establishing a culture and climate.

- Beth, let's turn to, we've been talking about retaining teachers.

How do we attract new teachers?

Of course, Illinois State University, other universities have programs in place, but how do you get those new teachers?

There's not enough of them, clearly.

- That's a great question and we have to come at it from multiple directions.

So one is looking at career changers.

Who is at the end of a career that maybe wants to change career paths, what pathways to alternative licensure can we find for them and bring them in as new teachers?

We have to look at compensation because as a mother of two recent college grads who want to launch, who want to find a place to live and a car to drive and being able to afford food in this economy, you're looking at that bottom line salary.

And I think we can't underestimate that.

And last but not least, unfortunately, we do have to look at the tier two pension system.

Currently any new teacher coming into the system is under tier two, which means you're teaching until you're 67 at a reduced benefit level.

And I think that long term, that can be a turnoff to some folks coming into the profession and staying in the profession.

- And let's clarify why tier two existed.

I believe it was 2011 and it was because of the pension issue with the state of Illinois, which still exists.

So tier two is an important issue when it comes to teachers.

- It's a critical issue.

If you're talking about someone that couldn't retire at 55 in tier one or someone that has to work until they're 67, there will be a lot of critical decisions coming later in life that could turn some people away from the profession.

But culture and climate, attracting people to the profession as a second career, taking those new teachers, wrapping them in supports, we just have to think of it as multiple avenues and encouraging our high school students if they're interested in the profession, how can we accelerate their process through college to get them back into the classroom as well.

- Let's talk about encouraging high school students, Marjorie, is there, are you aware of anything in East Peoria High School where you're saying, "Hey, teaching's a good profession"?

I mean someone encouraged you, I assume.

- Yes, yes.

And I would say good teachers inspire and that won't ever change.

What we do see sometimes and I found myself slightly guilty of this in some minor ways is current teachers who used to be a great pipeline for encouraging their own children to get into education are not doing that anymore because of the challenges that they themselves are facing.

And we've gotta change that narrative.

I understand a parent wanting what's best for their own child.

Absolutely, 100%.

The message is teaching is still a great profession.

Is it exhausting?

Yes.

Is it frustrating sometimes?

Absolutely.

Is it still the best profession on the planet?

In my opinion, absolutely.

So we have to look at changing the narrative of you don't wanna be a teacher or you don't wanna stay in the state of Illinois if you wanna be a teacher to we need you, we need good teachers.

And I do think we're gonna see some changes to tier two, that's maybe more of a hope than a think.

But for example, with the tier two, I have a principal at my high school who has more years left in her career at the age of 33 than she has been alive as a principal.

That is unbelievable and unsustainable.

And so we have to look at that.

- Let's talk about money, Mark.

The state of Illinois by law requires that school districts pay $40,000 minimum for a school teacher beginning in the next school year.

Peoria Public Schools, Bloomington, that's not an issue, but the small school districts, many of which are in your four counties, that's a strain on the tax base.

I mean, where's the money coming from?

- Well, hopefully there'll be more and more money coming from the state, but you are right, H, that predominantly that burden falls on the local taxpayers for that school district.

And so as the state continues to implement these mandates on compensation, and not to say that teachers aren't deserving of that, but with that has to come some additional support from the state.

There certainly are negotiations right now on the budget side at the state level to increase the proposed increase of about 350 million to another 200 additional million into the EBF, the education formula.

- The evidence-based formula.

- Evidence-based formula.

And so there's that but certainly we're probably not gonna hit the targeted goal of evidence-based funding by 2027, which is 7 billion.

We're gonna probably fall a couple billion short.

So as a result that falls to our local taxpayers.

And that's a challenge as we continue to see these mandates around compensation as well as instructional mandates.

There continue to be mandates that come down from the general assembly.

The districts are asked to cram more things into the same eight hours, work hours, and without necessarily any additional compensation.

And so districts are gonna either to try to get creative and find other ways or some things are just going to have to fall off the wayside, in my opinion when it comes to instructional mandates going forward 'cause it's not sustainable.

And you know, as soon as this 40,000 goes in place next year there's already legislation proposed to reset the minimum salary and move it forward.

- Beth, in our final minute, let's talk a little bit about student teachers.

Is there some way we can encourage more students to actually enter college?

But the ones who are student teachers, Marjorie already alluded to you get this environment and you know, the teacher I'm student teaching for is exhausted.

Is there any way we can help with student teaching?

- Some districts are now allowed to pay student teachers.

That's a great way to encourage them to stay with that district and go into the profession.

One of the challenges of student teaching is it is unpaid.

So if we can find a way to compensate them while they're doing that in the classroom, we can can grow our own.

- And with that, the conversation here has ended, but you can continue the conversation at home and see if you have a solution to the teacher shortage in Illinois.

Let me say thank you to my three guests, Marjorie Greuter, who is the superintendent at East Peoria High School.

Thank you.

And Beth Crider, regional superintendent for Peoria County.

And Mark Jontry, regional superintendent for DeWitt, Logan, Livingston and McLean.

Thank you for being with us.

On the next "At Issue" we'll be talking about another shortage, this time the shortage of nurses in Illinois.

Join us for that conversation.

(exciting music)