Severe teacher shortages persist in Sacramento schools. What it means for parents, students

Sacramento resident Courtney Flores’ two daughters have often been taught by substitute teachers at their schools this academic year.

Her eldest daughter is a ninth grader at Hiram Johnson High School, and has been without a geography teacher since the start of the year. Flores’ younger daughter in seventh grade is still without a Spanish teacher, and Flores wonders just how detrimental the teacher shortage will affect her progress in the subject.

“It definitely has affected them, because they are still expected to do the work without guidance and are still receiving grades that can affect them trying to get into college,” Flores said.

The school year is nearly halfway complete, and school districts across the Sacramento region are still struggling to fill dozens of positions, both with permanent teachers and substitutes. Teacher shortages have exacerbated the already long list of challenges schools face as they remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Teacher shortages are not unique to Sacramento. Reports of staff vacancies in K-12 education have been growing across the country. More than 75% of school officials in the U.S. reported challenges in finding substitutes for classrooms, according to an EdWeek Research Center survey.

Last year, nearly 16,000 educators in California retired — either teachers who reached the age of retirement or those who chose to retire a few years early. More than half cited the pandemic as a major factor in their decision, according to CalSTRS, the state’s teacher retirement system. The last time the state lost that many teachers was during the 2008 recession.

But the current teacher shortages are not exclusively related to the pandemic. School districts have been facing staff shortages for several years, affecting students and, in many cases, their academic performance.

Vacancies across the county

There are roughly 126 full-time employee vacancies in the Sacramento City Unified School District: 40 are classroom vacancies, 59.6 are non-classroom vacancies, and 26 are language, speech and hearing specialist vacancies.

The district also has about 173 classified staff vacancies, 105 of which are new positions in the district.

The Sacramento City Teachers Association said vacancies have left many students without fully credentialed teachers for several months, and the union has called on the district to focus on recruitment and retention.

“Sac City Unified has made a number of proposals to provide additional pay to address the serious teacher staff shortage that has resulted in a gap between student demand for Independent Study and available teachers, a shortage of substitute teachers, and the need to improve continuity of learning for students in short- and long-term independent study,” according to a statement from district spokesperson Al Goldberg. “The district has proposed to provide additional pay to teachers who perform extra duties to support students in long- and short-term independent study.”

Other districts in Sacramento County are facing severe staffing shortages.

The San Juan Unified School District has about 210 vacancies. Approximately 40 are certificated positions, including teaching jobs in Early Childhood Education, intervention and special education. Twin Rivers Unified has just over 61 full-time employee vacancies, including nurses, counselors and coaches. There are about 14 classroom vacancies, according to the district.

Folsom Cordova Unified is still looking for roughly 20 teachers across the district. The district offers $140 a day to substitutes with emergency credentials and $250 a day to substitutes with full credentials.

There are 26 teacher vacancies in Natomas Unified and 65 classified staff vacancies.

Why are so many substitutes needed?

While the pandemic exacerbated the shortage, not enough people have been entering the teaching ranks in recent years.

Mass layoffs in school districts during the 2008 economic recession sent a message to people interested in teaching: There is instability in the profession. In the years after the recession, there was a rapid decline of people entering teacher preparation programs. And teachers have long earned less than others with similar education levels, making it even more difficult to recruit new educators.

But separate from the recession, some districts such as Sacramento City Unified have been laying off teachers in recent years as well, worsening the teacher shortage even more. And incentives that once brought teachers to urban school districts, such as Sacramento City Unified’s health plan that covers 100% of costs, are constantly on the negotiating table. The district recently proposed to reduce the cost of health care benefits in an effort to make the plan more comparable to other school districts.

“Our community in the city of Sacramento is having significant shortages because of deliberate actions taken by this district,” said SCTA Vice President Nikki Milevsky. “Other districts are offering recruiting and support, and ours is offering pay cuts and cuts to benefits.”

The SCTA filed a grievance on Nov. 12 against the district for “failing to provide adequate staffing among certificated educators.” Union leaders called the issue a self-inflicted staffing shortage.

With teacher shortages, school districts will need to rely on temporary staffing to fill classrooms with teachers. But school officials are faced with the additional challenge of a substitute shortage.

Administrators often take on the role of teachers to fill gaps in classrooms. The Sacramento City Unified classroom teacher in Nicole Washington’s son’s sixth grade class quit in early October. The school principal taught the class until Thanksgiving break. A substitute teacher is now teaching the class.

The number of permits for substitute teachers decreased significantly over the last few years. In 2016, more than 20,000 new substitute permits were issued across the state, according to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Three years later, just 15,000 permits were issued.

As officials in the Sacramento area scramble to hire staff, many districts are dramatically increasing substitute pay. Sacramento City Unified and its teachers union are negotiating to pay substitutes an additional 25% for this school year.

The incentives are there, but with the pandemic still looming, many adults are worried about entering packed classrooms during a pandemic, especially given the demands on substitute teachers.

Jeremy Griggs, a substitute in the Sacramento City Unified School District, said the job of entering a classroom on a temporary basis is tough because “you want to establish yourself and get respect from the kids and get them to see you as anything more than just them having a free day.”

“There’s only so much of that you can really tolerate,” he said. “It definitely weighs on you, so I can understand why people would be turned off. A lot of sites are willing to work with you, but it’s just a challenge.”

When subs are not available, site administrators and teachers who are on prep periods are also teaching classes. Districts including Sacramento City Unified have also said they will increase pay for secondary school staff who are filling in for colleagues.

And when schools still don’t find substitutes, classes are combined and sent to larger rooms such as a school cafeteria.

Milevsky called the decision to combine multiple classes to supervise students “criminal.”

What are solutions?

School districts are now accepting college level coursework in lieu of a California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) to hire additional substitutes. The California legislature also passed AB 167, which would allow substitute teachers to work for 60 consecutive days rather than 30 consecutive days until the end of the 2021-2022 school year.

But policy changes have not provided results in all classrooms.

Maranda Brannon, a Twin Rivers Unified parent, said her fourth grade daughter has been without a teacher since the start of the school year after her teacher went on leave. In the last few months, her daughter has had five substitute teachers. Those teachers have since been replaced with a long-term substitute.

But there is no telling when or whether the district will hire a full-time teacher for her class.

Brannon said experiencing such a shortage after classrooms were closed for a year has only left her frustrated.

“My kid is not getting the education she needs after a year off,” Brannon said. “She is already behind and she is testing at third grade level.”

This story was originally published December 15, 2021 at 5:00 AM.