Looking to retain educators, these school districts invest in employee health

While public education in Pennsylvania continues to recover from the shockwaves sent from the pandemic, fewer new teacher certifications are being issued every year, creating a scramble to keep schools staffed.

That shortage has led districts to rethink how they hire new teachers and retain the ones they already have.

For some Central Pa. school districts, that means a focus on the physical and mental wellness of their employees.

"Obviously, current events and the way teachers have to be a jack of all trades, is sometimes overwhelming," human resources manager for Northern Lebanon School district Lauren Bruce said. "I can imagine, again I have no data to back this up, but I can imagine if you're a college student and you're picking between two different things, teaching being one and something else being one ... you weigh the pros and cons. And you go well this one seems more stressful then maybe you make the different choice."

As more and more teachers retire, with continued declines in new teacher certificates, it begs the question: Who's going to fill those positions?

New teachers in Pa. have dropped by the thousands

Only 6,153 Instructional I certificates were issued in Pennsylvania in 2021-2022, compared to 21,045 in 2010, according to Act 82 reporting, which tracks teacher preparation and certification.

Certificate I's are the first certificates that educators receive before they can teach.

Issuance of Instructional Certificates II's, which educators are required to get after six years of service, have also seen significant drops, with only 6,001 being issued last year.

A decline in Instructional II's, which suggests to Bruce that teachers are leaving the profession before they're required to get the certificate, only compound the problem.

Pa. school districts invest in their employees' wellness

During an April 4 committee meeting, Bruce presented an updated approach to how the Northern Lebanon School District handles onboarding, part of a larger effort to attract and retain employees.

The district wants new hires to feel more welcome in their first days. Officials hope a focus on clear and encompassing communication will result in a less hectic and comfortable orientation.

Bruce described how the onboarding process will be updated to both welcome new educators, making them feel comfortable before their first day even in the building, as well as ensuring they know all vital information they need to effectively do their job, with a three-phase process that follows the employee from the moment they're hired until their first 90 days.

Teachers will receive a NorLeb Vikings' swag bag, as well as occasional check-ins from administration intended to be supportive and informal.

The idea behind the changes, she said, is that if the district makes the new hires feel welcome and comfortable, they're more likely to stay in the district.

Unclaimed Property: Lebanon County residents are owed close to $15M. Check to see if you have money waiting

Confidence Inked: She became a tattoo artist at 57 after a fight with cancer inspired her to help others

Part of the district plan is also focused on building recruiting relationships with local colleges to fill open positions by advertising what the district has to offer.

For retention, the district has recently started stay interviews for those who have been with the district for nine to 18 months, discussing why they stayed with the district, but also things that could be improved.

"Not that we can fix everything immediately," Bruce said," but I think when people know that they can share concerns and we can work to address it, they're more likely to stay as well."

Anecdotally, Bruce shared that part of why people leave is because of life reasons, like the need to move closer to home. Another part is the stress that comes with teaching, and the mental and physical health implications that it can cause.

The district works with counseling firm Mazzetti & Sullivan to offer an employee assistance program that allows employees to get counseling sessions for zero out-of- pocket costs.

In partnership with WellSpan, the district also held an on-site free biometric screening for its employees that took their blood pressure, blood work, cholesterol levels and early diabetic screening markers during an in-service day, with their results emailed to them privately.

"The thought process there was that sometimes if you're feeling stressed, it comes out in health concerns," Bruce said. "But people don't often have time during the day to go to their doctor, people don't have time to deal with this stuff, so what's one more thing we can do to alleviate, like, a to-do list."

Bruce also believes that the widespread popularization of fully remote work, which isn't much of a reality in Pennsylvania public education, has contributed to the reduced number of certifications.

State offers incentives to help grow numbers

Bruce said that the district has several open positions for the upcoming school year, including one for a school psychologist, which has been particularly difficult to even get people to apply for because of the specialized nature of the job.

Many jobs in education, including those like school psychologist and counselors, require a certification.

Bruce said that the figures in the ACT 82 PDE report are a top concern to her as a human resources coordinator.

The state is also concerned with these numbers.

Governor Josh Shapiro is offering three years of $2,500 personal tax incentive for newly certified teachers in the 2023-2024 budget, and the PDE is making $1.5 million in grants available to higher education institutions to expedite training for special education instructors along with opening new pathways for new education preparation through career and technical education centers.

Rocket Wellness center

Northern Lebanon isn't the only Central Pennsylvania district that has turned their eyes toward the wellness of their employees.

In early March, York County's Spring Grove Area School District opened the Rocket Wellness Center in its former district office behind the middle school.

The decision initially came from concerns over rising costs of their healthcare benefits program. The district found that traditional ways of reducing the costs to the employer would be transferred to the employee without improving the quality of care.

The district has contracted Everside Health, who staffs and maintains the center, which is opened 40 hours a week.

The wellness center provides low or no-cost care to its teachers and employees and their dependents, allowing them to visit during school hours and see a professional quicker than it would generally take to see a primary care doctor.

"Our plan has been and our instructions with our staff, particularly our building principles, find a way to cover their class," district superintendent George Ioannidis said. "Let them go, they can get seen and then if they're cleared to return to the classroom, they come back and have their medicine in hand assuming that they needed some medication, and they're back to teaching."

Beyond providing teachers and staff affordable and timely medical care that allows them to return to teaching, the wellness center is a malleable project for the district.

The building has some room left for growth, which Ionnidis said is a option, but things like hours of operations, who it's available to, what services are available and even the contractor staffing the building are able to change in the future.

Ionnidis said that part of the payoff from the school is the preventative measures that having a wellness center provides to its employees. The idea being that if healthcare is readily available at an affordable cost, more serious conditions can not only be prevented, but caught early enough to treat, reducing the healthcare cost over the lifetime of the individual while benefiting overall employee wellness.

"Our benefits plans and our collective bargaining agreements, there's not a lot of variation between them, they may vary by region because of cost of living and how the contracts are negotiated," he said, "but we're trying distinguish ourselves and say, comparing to any of our neighbors, this is what we have. If you're going to make a decision on something other than the work environment or the direction of the district from an academic and structural perspective, here's a way to distinguish it."

Daniel Larlham Jr. is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at DLarlham@LDNews.com or on Twitter @djlarlham

This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: These Central Pa school districts put employee health at the center