Tight teacher job market squeezing some Buffalo-area school districts

“I’ve never seen applicants playing districts off one another like they do now,” Starpoint Central Superintendent Sean M. Croft said. “People are coming in and saying ‘I’m offered this at this school district, what can you do for me?’ ”

There's always a few last-minute hires in August, but it's a little different this year. Starpoint put off hiring an additional science teacher because it could not find the right candidate, and may not be able to fill a technology job. Clarence Central is hoping to hire a business teacher before school starts. And Buffalo Public Schools have 138 teaching spots to fill.

The market for teachers around the country is tighter than it has been in years, particularly in subjects such as science, special education and foreign languages. 

Some school districts in rural Texas switched to four-day weeks as an incentive to attract and retain teachers. Florida is issuing temporary certificates to veterans who have 60 hours of college credit to teach for up to five years while they pursue bachelor’s degrees to get more teachers in the classroom.

The days of getting hundreds of applications for one opening are over, so some local districts are trying different ways to attract quality candidates: advertising more and sometimes offering to start applicants at a higher pay step or offering signing bonuses.

“We have a little wiggle room,” Croft said.

And while teachers have been known to switch schools, Croft said there’s a new wrinkle: Teachers are being wooed by other districts.

“We had a technology teacher leave because they were recruited by another district,” he said, adding that the teacher got emails from teachers in the other district lauding their school.

He doesn’t think he’ll be able to hire a technology teacher by September. Starpoint also was planning to add a science teacher this year because of increases in enrollment, but could not find the right hire.

“We decided to punt until next year, and rework the schedule to give existing teachers additional classes,” Croft said.

While smaller districts may still have a few open spots, Buffalo Public Schools have 138 teacher openings.

But that’s not unusual. It’s about the same number of openings the district had at this time the last five years, according to Tami Hollie-McGee, chief of human resources. She said she expects that number to come down, since the transfer process ended Friday and the district can start extending offers to outside candidates.

She said that some teachers have told the district recently that they are leaving, either to relocate out of the area or to work in other districts that may be closer to where they live. 

“I have my staff reaching out to them to find out if there is something we can do to intervene to keep them from separating from us,” Hollie-McGee said.

Not every district has had problems. It’s been a busy summer for hiring in West Seneca, but the faculty is set, although hiring in other areas, such as transportation, is a bit of a struggle.

“If we had a physics opening, I might be panicking,” West Seneca Assistant Superintendent Jonathan Cervoni said.

West Seneca developed partnerships with local college teacher prep programs for students to be substitutes. The district also created preferred building substitutes who work every day with duties that can vary from day to day.

“We really get to know them, they get to know us,” Superintendent Matthew Bystrak said.

While the shortage may not have reached a crisis point in Western New York, districts are seeing far fewer applicants for the openings they have. Several years ago, it would not have been unusual for Clarence Central to have 30 applications for a music teacher posting.

“We put one up not too long ago, and it was more like 12,” said Robert Michel, assistant superintendent for human resources.

It really depends on the specialty, he said.

“For an elementary position, we’re usually pretty safe in getting very quality applications,” Michel said.

But there are few candidates for special education, family consumer sciences, business, chemistry, physics and even Spanish, he said.

“I never thought we would have trouble filling Spanish positions,” Michel said. “That’s a problem across the state.”

The district was considering discontinuing its family consumer science program in the middle school because it had trouble hiring a teacher, but a second posting yielded a successful candidate.

When they can't fill an opening, Buffalo Public Schools, like other schools, asks other teachers to pick up a class during their planning period for extra pay, Hollie-McGee said.

The shortage of teachers has been looming for years. According to the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System, 34% of teachers in 2021 were 50 or older. State officials estimate that New York will need 180,000 new teachers over the next decade.

“We knew that our workforce was aging out. Unfortunately, as we started to see the shortage looming, the pandemic hit,” said Jolene DiBrango, executive vice president of New York State United Teachers.

Adding to the demographics is the stress of teaching through the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as culture wars creeping into schools. While teachers don't appear to be leaving the profession in masses right now, some have noticed a slight uptick in retirements.  

"I think part of that is the stress of the last two-and-a-half years. It's definitely taking a toll on individuals," Croft said. "People just at the back end of their career are getting out maybe earlier than they anticipated."

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona has called on states, school districts and institutions of higher education to form partnerships to support a strong pipeline of teachers. He also urged them to use American Rescue Plan Act funding to address the teacher shortage and increase the number of teacher candidates prepared to enter the teaching profession.

Many districts have hired more teachers in the past year with federal funds, which decreased the pool of applicants a little more.

Buffalo is one of many districts working with local colleges with teacher preparation programs.

“We have engaged with the local colleges for around three years to gain teachers through the teacher residency program,” Hollie-McGee said.

Under the teacher residency program, college students aspiring to be teachers work in the classroom for four days a week, and spend one day getting classroom instruction.

New York State United Teachers created a “Take a Look at Teaching” program to encourage students to consider teaching as a profession.

Schools also might think about improving working conditions to attract and retain teachers, DiBrango said. 

“I think now that we're seeing this shortage you will see teachers seek out districts that have excellent labor management relationships or great working environments where perhaps they have flexible schedules or better schedules,” she said.

Finding a job in education still boils down to being in the right place at the right time, with the right certification.

Michel, of Clarence, recently met with a substitute teacher candidate with a biochemical degree who was anticipating getting certified to teach biology.

“I said pick up chemistry, chemistry teachers are at a premium,” he said.