JCPS hopes this change will help schools in dire need of teachers

Unruly students. Low staff morale. Little instruction.

That is the picture painted by teachers at Conway Middle School in southwest Louisville during an October meeting focused on instruction, behavior and school climate, according to documents obtained by The Courier Journal.

And with multiple teacher vacancies - coupled with the challenge of finding substitutes when needed for classes - staff at the school said they weren't receiving enough help from Jefferson County Public Schools' central office.

"Overall I feel that most of our problems stem from not enough adults/staff in the building. Why are we not getting help from the district with this?" one Conway teacher asked during the meeting.

More:JCPS board approves raises for teachers, other contract perks

In fact, Conway was sent only one employee from central office while it had seven teacher vacancies while other schools received one employee to cover just a single teaching vacancy in the same time period, district data shows. But a review of the data also shows that of the 45 central office staff members who were sent into schools during the first 12 weeks of the year, few went to the schools like Conway that have been hit the hardest by a teacher shortage.

The reason, JCPS says, is partly an issue of credentialing - those staff available to temporarily fill vacancies don't necessarily have the needed certification.

It is an issue the district hopes will be helped by a change to its policy on deploying central office employees to cover vacancies that was part of the contract extension approved Tuesday night.

The change will allow a central office employee to fill a vacancy even if their certification does not match the unfilled position.

This, JCPS spokeswoman Carolyn Callahan said, will allow for more flexibility in where personnel are sent. Ideally, this would benefit the schools with more vacancies - even if only for a temporary period.

Where the district staffers went

A handful of schools did not have any vacant teaching spots at the end of September, yet had a district staffer covering a classroom.

Meanwhile, schools with a heavy need for teachers were getting a fraction of those classrooms covered, the data shows. Waller Williams Elementary in west Louisville for example, needed 14 teachers, according to the data. It got four district staffers.

OPINION: The teacher shortage is real, it is catastrophic and our children deserve better

Meanwhile, Johnson Middle in the West End had nine posted teaching positions at the end of September and none of them were covered by district employees, data shows. The school also touts the second-lowest retention rate in the district - keeping just 54% of its teachers from last year.

For Conway, the lack of adults in the building has created a situation many teachers said is dangerous.

On at least one day in November, all of the school's administrators were covering classes.

"Please handle any behavior issues to the best of your ability as we may not be fully available. Security is still on the floor but remember there are only 5 of them," Principal Jeannie Lett wrote in an email to staff.

"Students come, go and congregate in the halls at will, expressing belligerence. We DO address it, but the system is insufficient and overwhelmed," one teacher wrote in the October meeting. That month alone, data shows, the school issued 405 referrals, meaning a student was sent to administrator to be disciplined.

The source of the problem

The reasons that schools with a lesser need received more help was because of the nuanced issue of certification, Callahan said.

"For example, if a middle school is in need, but our available (resource teachers) only have elementary certification, they could not be sent to the middle school," she said.

More news:Kentucky kid blinded by bullet writes book with Master P – with a co-sign from Snoop Dogg

Additionally, it is up to a school's principal to request a central office employee, she said.

With nearly 150 central office employees available to work as resource teachers, "we are not holding any back," Callahan said. "If we received requests that equaled the number of remaining (resource staff) we would work to fulfill them."

It is unclear if Conway's principal has requested more resource teachers, but district staffers did visit the school before Thanksgiving break to take note of the how the school was doing. Among their concerns was the lack of staff present in the hallways, according to a note sent by the principal.

Basic comments, Principal Lett wrote, were that too many students were in the halls without an excuse and that more adults were needed in the hallways.

"These are all things we know. ... So as the district does their part to try to get us some additional help in the building, I simply must ask you to do your part," the note said.

To be sure, the teacher shortage is not unique to JCPS - the entire state is suffering. Kentucky ranked No. 9 in the country with the highest shortage per population, with less than nine educators per 1,000 people, according to an analysis by Schoolaroo. Florida ranked the worst with less than seven teachers per 1,000 people and North Dakota the best with more than 13.

As for JCPS, it saw the highest number of midyear resignations during the 2021-22 school year than at any other point in the last six years. Between Aug. 1, 2021, and the end of July, JCPS lost 393 educators to resignations.

The district hopes a recent 5% pay hike included in the contract extension - raising the average annual teacher salary to $73,000 - will help it retain and recruit more staff. Meanwhile, it continues to use, "specialists, managers, and supervisors who go to schools to help in classrooms, hallways, lunchrooms, etc.," Callahan said.

But until a more permanent solution is achieved, schools like Conway, as one teacher put it, could remain an environment where "disruptive students make instruction extremely difficult."

Olivia Krauth contributed to this report. Contact reporter Krista Johnson at kjohnson3@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: JCPS takes another step toward combatting teacher shortage