Philly still needs teachers, just before the first day of school
The Philadelphia school district is still short nearly 400 teachers. The district is looking for solutions to ease the worries of the first day of school.
PHILADELPHIA – The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers estimates that there are at least 400 vacancies in city schools at a time when schools across the country are suffering from a teacher shortage.
The union reports that Randolph High, a vocational and technical school in Nicetown-Tioga, is missing one teacher and seven special education teachers just days before the start of the school year. This concern is being voiced throughout the district.
PFT Chief of Staff LeShawna Coleman said, “Our members are reporting oversized classes due to the vacancies, and they are also reporting that we have many vacancies for special education assistants.”
The union said class sizes would be capped at 30 students for grades kindergarten through 3rd grade and 33 for grades 4 through 12. Oversized classes would force the school district to open more classrooms, union leadership said, while the PFT estimates the city’s public schools do not have those 400 spaces.
Superintendent Tony Watlington said: “Are we going to have some vacancies? That will certainly cause us some headaches, but we will look after our children.”
In a wide-ranging interview about back-to-school last week, Watlington said the district has 95 percent of the teachers it needs and put the number of vacancies at “a few hundred.” When asked by FOX 29 if some children are going into classrooms without permanent teachers, Watlington said, “They are going into classrooms with a competent and caring adult who is qualified to teach.”
Schools across the country are suffering from teacher shortages as fewer students enter the profession and the number of teachers leaving the profession increases. Teaching vacancies in poorer districts are an additional problem because the students who come to them have greater needs. Watlington maintained last week that the district is continuing to recruit and is expanding its recruiting efforts outside of Pennsylvania.
The union said it wants to make the city’s schools a “more attractive place to work” in the hopes of having more qualified teachers at the top of the class. Coleman of the PFT said the teacher shortage means “children are starting the school year without a full-time teacher. That’s not a good idea for a child in Philadelphia. We want to make sure our students have as much stability as possible.”
