Teacher Shortage In Maryland & Across The U.S. Raises Concern
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- There is a growing teacher shortage in districts nationwide and the potential crisis is expected to stretch into the fall.
A recent Frontline Education survey looked at more than 1,000 districts and found a record two in three reported having a teacher shortage — few were immune from it.
"We've seen this shortage coming," said Cheryl Bost, President of Maryland State Education Association.
Cheryl Bost, President of the Maryland State Education Association, said there is a nationwide teacher shortage including here in Maryland.
"More and more, we're hearing educators say that they don't want to teach summer school. We've seen surveys say more educators, teachers especially, are not coming back," said Bost.
According to a survey by Frontline Education, 60 percent of suburban schools nationwide are dealing with a shortage compared to 65 percent in rural areas and 75 percent in cities. Part of the blame is the pressures from the pandemic.
"We were really shown a lot of disrespect and that had an impact on the burnout that we're seeing on educators, feeling unvalued feeling just not heard and understanding of what they were trying to do and the difficulties they were trying to do them under," said Bost
Pay has also been a major deterrent for many teachers who believe they are not properly compensated.
"The areas we're experiencing teacher shortages in are math, science, special education and world language," said Bob Mosier, Spokesperson with Anne Arundel County Schools
Anne Arundel County officials said they are feeling the pressure.
"We're trying a lot of different things. We're doing job board listings, Twitter page, a lot of social media outreach," said Mosier.
Bost said she is worried if they don't fill the empty positions, the kids will suffer.
"The alarm should've been sounded now I think we're putting up the major hurricane flag to say it's critically important that we look at this teacher shortage otherwise we won't be able to deliver the quality of education that we expect in Maryland," said Bost.
