Bucks County teachers prepare for back-to-'normal'-school year; staffing a concern for some

Samuel Lee has been an educator for the past 42 years. The superintendent of the Bensalem School District knows the challenges school districts faced through the pandemic and are continuing to work through as the new school year quickly approaches.

Administrators are seeing districts competing against each other for teachers and other staff personnel as many of these staffers have left the profession, and college students are choosing other careers.

Bensalem is facing a shortage of "a handful" of long-term substitutes as well as teachers of English for the more than 700 students in the district who are not native English speakers ― "by far the most in Bucks County," Lee said. But he's ever the optimist.

"I'm having too much fun," he said when asked about the stress of leading a school district during these trying times. "Our human resource and building (principals) are doing a wonderful job with staffing this year."

Lee admitted that districts are competing against each other for support staff, custodians and bus drivers but said, overall, Bensalem is in good shape and has worked to raise the pay of its employees so that it could fill these positions when there's a need.

Lee said the perceived teacher shortage is real because "there's not the volume of people going into education," as there was a decade ago but that the state allowing the districts to use student teachers and retired teachers to help with the shortfall has really helped. And the prospects of getting a full-time job as a teacher for anyone who wants to enter the profession now "are as good as they've been in my long tenure."

Gov. Tom Wolf signed Act 91 last year that gives school districts more leeway in the hiring of retired teachers and the use of students as substitute teachers and of paraprofessionals as classroom monitors when a teacher is not there.

Will there be enough teachers and support staff in Bucks and Montco?

"There definitely is a concern. We do have an educator shortage. We do have a staff shortage. It goes beyond teachers to paraprofessionals and all support staff," said Chris Lilienthal, assistant communications director for the Pennsylvania State Education Association. The shortages are most felt in poorer rural and urban school districts as well as in the fields of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education and special education.

"It really has been a significant challenge."

Between the 2010-11 and 2020-21 school years, there was a 62% decline in the number of new teacher certifications issued in Pennsylvania, from 17,000 to 6,500, Lilienthal said. It started before COVID, but the pandemic didn't help.

The past two years have been hard on teachers and support staff members who have had to work both in school and with students still learning remotely from home. Some experienced teachers have left the profession and some college students who would have become teachers have looked for other careers instead.

And there is also a shortage of substitute teachers that has regular teachers worried because if a teacher is absent and a substitute cannot be found, other regular teachers in the school will have to try to educate the absent teacher's students as well as their own, and may have to give up preparation periods to take control of the other class.

"It's a double whammy, dealing with more students (but) there's not enough time to prepare. ... You're ending the day exhausted." Too many days like this over the past couple of years have led some teachers to look for other careers, Lilienthal pointed out.

"When society doesn't value you, want to pay you fairly, they choose other careers," he said.

School districts have had to get creative to meet staffing needs. The Hatboro-Horsham district in Montgomery County held a job fair last week and conducted interviews with 14 people who applied. It still is recruiting college students who are studying to be teachers to serve as substitutes under Pennsylvania Act 86.

"We made several conditional job offers but still have positions available. Specifically, we are still looking for these positions to be filled: custodial, instructional assistant, special education job coach, recess assistants, childcare positions, CDL/van drivers and substitutes (daily subs and long-term subs)," said Christine Welsh, district human resources director. "Thankfully, we still have some candidates in the applicant pool and overall, we are very grateful to be in good shape. But we definitely have opportunities available and welcome interested candidates to visit our site or contact us in Human Resources at 215-420-5000 to learn more."

School districts seeing "robust response" to job openings

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A survey of Bucks County school districts showed that many aren't anticipating problems, though some districts and two substitute teacher agencies have not responded to requests for comment.

"Fortunately, we are in a reasonably good position at this time of year with filling our vacancies. Therefore, we are currently not experiencing the shortfall that many other districts are at this time," said Sean Haines, acting superintendent of the Morrisville School District.

In the Pennsbury District, spokeswoman Jennifer Neill said, "As of today, we are 99.98% filled for teaching staff and 99.94% filled for bus drivers. We had a significant number of vacancies in special education throughout the year, but we are close to filled there as well."

Council Rock School District reports "a typical number of openings for this time of year.

"Job postings are receiving a robust response in the number of applicants across all areas, and we are on a good path to get positions filled. There is no shortfall heading into the fall," said Andrea Mangold, district spokesperson.

Pennridge Superintendent David Bolton said the district is "finalizing our hiring for the fall and have some open positions, like we do every August. We are confident that staffing will not have a classroom impact when students return on August 29th."

In the New Hope-Solebury district, spokeswoman Stephanie Yoder, said, "Our district is not anticipating any staffing shortages for the coming school year."

The Quakertown Community School District is in "fairly good shape, teacher-wise. If we're short anywhere it's with instructional aides," said spokesman Gary Weckselblatt. It raised salaries last fall for support staff but has had a continuing problem having enough custodians. It contracts with the firm SSC Services for these workers. At the school board meeting last week, "they came up with a few options and on Thursday night the board unanimously approved a pay increase from $14 an hour to $17.50 an hour with the district picking up $3 an hour cost and SSC adding 50 cents," Weckselblatt said.

The Levy School Bus Co. which serves the Quakertown district said it also said it's well staffed with drivers. "We're in good shape. Things are getting better," said Len Pawlowski, assistant operations manager.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia reported, “We’ve not seen any staffing need levels markedly higher than in previous years. We are deeply grateful to our dedicated, teachers, and staff for their daily work to educate the young people in our schools based on the model of Jesus Christ.”

But several school districts, including Bristol Township and Bristol Borough, Centennial, Central Bucks and Neshaminy did not comment on their staffing situations. Palisades spokeswoman Donna Holmes was out of the office last week.

Tom Seidenberger, interim director of the Middle Bucks Institute of Technology, said the tech school in Jamison has "all the instructional staff in place but we do need two instructional assistants to support students in classrooms." The school has its own list of substitute teachers so it doesn't have to rely on outside agencies.

Seidenberger's biggest concern is that the school's front outdoor plaza is torn up for a $600,000 concrete replacement project. He's hoping the project will be finished by October. In the meantime, the students will need to enter from other entrances. A retired superintendent who worked for the Centennial and East Penn school districts, Seidenberger called the renovations a minor issue that will be resolved in a couple of months.

And he's grateful the tech school only will have five new teachers this year. "We didn't have a lot of turnover...Knock on wood, we're in good shape," he said.

CDC guidelines relaxed

At Conwell-Egan Catholic High School in Fairless Hills, music teacher Thomas Kuchler is looking forward to heading back to the freshly polished classrooms.

"I'm feeling very positive it actually will be closer to normal," said Kuchler, who also serves as the school's director of performing arts.

Whereas last year, the state Department of Education mandated masking, this year, the state is urging school districts to follow CDC guidelines, which now recommends that people who are sick stay home but doesn't mandate quarantining for exposure.

"The CDC guidance highlights the importance of public health prevention strategies and layering prevention strategies to support safe, in-person learning. Schools should continue to utilize prevention strategies such as masking, physical distancing, testing, ventilation, handwashing, and staying home when sick to prevent the spread of infectious diseases," the DOE stated Aug. 1.

"I think we were all hoping last year would be back to normal but it wasn't. I think that took a toll on a lot of teachers and students. It was tough adjusting after hybrid to coming back full-time and expecting it to be normal," he said, especially when people still had to be masked at the beginning of the school year.

This year, he thinks everyone will be more prepared and with COVID restrictions relaxed, "I am looking forward to it. I really am," Kuchler said.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bucks County teachers hope for 'normal' year; staff shortages still a concern