Bobby Bolen is trying to fill around 50 teaching positions at the North Slope Borough School District.
“This is our focus 24 hours a day right now — to get classrooms staffed for students,” Bolen said.
Bolen is the brand-new human resources director at the district, which has about 2,000 students in 12 schools, some of which start as soon as Aug. 8. He’s exploring options like long-term substitutes and the prospect of international teachers to round out the district’s usual teaching staff of about 170.
“Our worst-case scenario would be distance-delivery. That’s obviously not our goal and that’s not our preference, but you know, we do have some experience with it as a result of COVID, so if we have to revert to it to get some initial schools started, then we’re prepared to do that,” Bolen said.
With the new school year approaching next month, school districts throughout the state are struggling to properly staff schools and classrooms. The national teacher shortage, which pre-dates the pandemic, is uniquely felt in Alaska, which has historically relied on recruiting teachers from the Lower 48.
“We’re in the worst place with this that Alaska has ever seen,” said Lisa Parady, executive director of the Alaska Council of School Administrators.
“What I’m hearing from administrators is that many districts are not staffed. People are working overtime to try to find high-quality educators for our students, and we are at an all-time high in Alaska for turnover at every level,” Parady said.
Other public employers, including the state government, are struggling to fill positions. But the scale of the problem for some school districts is particularly large. According to the Alaska Teacher Placement website, a statewide education job clearinghouse, about 1,100 jobs are open in school districts around Alaska. That includes all areas and levels of school and education staff, from principals, teachers and special education staff to paraeducators, support staff and sports coaches to language teachers, counselors and speech pathologists.
The Wrangell School District is still looking for an elementary school teacher, with classes starting in just four weeks, and has two openings for support staff.
Toni McFadden, manager of Alaska Teacher Placement, said the severity of the issue has been years in the making, “creeping up on us and getting bigger and bigger and bigger.”
The trend can be seen in the declining attendance of the spring job fair Alaska Teacher Placement holds every March.
“Back in the ‘80s and even the early ’90s, there were 1,000-plus candidates looking for jobs. This year, we had about 75 candidates at the spring fair that are looking for jobs,” McFadden said.
“Now, did it go from 1,100 to 75 in one year or two years? No. Every year, it’s just fewer and fewer and fewer,” she said. “This is a problem that’s been going on probably for 15 years or more, but it’s just getting to the point where it’s so severe now that districts are really struggling and they’re desperate to find qualified teachers to put in front of their children.”
One solution to the teacher shortage in Alaska: hiring teachers from the Philippines.
This past school year, 20 of Kuspuk School District’s 39 teachers were from the Philippines, radio station KYUK reported. The district includes villages along the Kuskokwim River. Gov. Mike Dunleavy last October thanked more than 100 Filipino teachers who came to Alaska to fill positions throughout the state.
The Bering Strait School District started hiring teachers from the Philippines two years ago because there was no one else to fill the vacancies, Chief School Administrator Susan Nedza said. And it’s worked out. Thirty of the district’s returning staff are from the Philippines with J-1 visas, the type of visa given to teachers who are part of a work-based exchange program to the U.S.
“They have years and years of experience, wonderful training. They fit in amazingly. We’ve had no complaints,” Nedza said.
Other districts currently interested in hiring J-1 visa teachers to fill vacancies may have a harder time. The U.S. State Department sent an email in June to sponsor agencies, which facilitate the visa process for the international teachers, saying that teachers placed in rural Alaska “may require additional monitoring and support.”
Nedza started out with 40 openings going into this school year. She’s down to about three. So, for the moment at least, Nedza is feeling good about staffing. Without those 36 staff from the Philippines though, “I don’t know where we would be,” she said.
A number of factors are driving the national teacher shortage — burnout, fewer people going into the teaching field, low pay — all of which were exacerbated by the pandemic.
“It’s kind of magnified in Alaska,” said Alaska Teacher Placement’s McFadden. Some Alaska-specific factors include harsh climate, vast geography and isolation, and a lack of amenities.
Administrators and education experts alike mentioned lack of a pension as a hindrance to recruiting teachers. Those experts include Juneau School District Superintendent Bridget Weiss.
“Alaska used to be super attractive to educators because we had a really good retirement system. That’s not the case anymore. Our retirement system is just not up to speed,” Weiss said. The state no longer provides pensions to newly hired teachers. Instead, it offers a defined-contribution retirement plan, with each teacher’s savings for retirement based in large part on their individual investment decisions.
The AlaskaBeacon.com is a donor-funded independent news organization in Alaska.
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