There’s a nationwide teacher’s shortage, and Vermont is no exception. The first day of school is just a week away, but on the job site where most school districts advertise open positions, you can still find well over 200 postings across the state.
With few candidates applying — especially in more rural districts — administrators are being forced to get creative.
And so, on a sunny afternoon earlier this month, Janet Cash, a principal at the First Branch Unified School District, took to the streets of Barre City. Blue painters tape in hand, she pounded the pavement — popping into shops, posting pamphlets on bulletin boards and chatting with just about anyone friendly enough to listen about the job openings in her district.
First Branch is about 30 minutes south of Barre. It serves the rural towns of Chelsea and Tunbridge. Cash, who recently came to the district from New Jersey, is pretty proud of its two schools. They have robust community partnerships, outdoor education programs, full-day preschool and aftercare.
If I can just get a burnt-out teacher through the door, they would be so relieved because we're doing so many good things that they want to do. We just can't get our message out, and it is so hard.Janet Cash, First Branch Unified School District principal
But just three weeks before kids were set to return to the classroom, First Branch was still short three classroom teachers and support staff.
“If I can just get a burnt-out teacher through the door, they would be so relieved because we're doing so many good things that they want to do," she said. "We just can't get our message out, and it is so hard.”
Cash and her assistant principal, Dan Rivers, both come from families of educators. But sitting outside Barre’s Kitty Korner Cafe, where he was tabling for First Branch, Rivers said it looked like fewer and fewer people are following that trajectory.
“I was speaking to a professor at UVM this fall, and she was saying how it seems like this is the first generation that parents that are teachers now, they're not telling their kids when they get to college, 'Hey, maybe you want to go into education,’” he said.
Vermont’s teaching shortage has been brewing for years, and became particularly acute post-pandemic. Anecdotally, administrators say this year’s hiring scramble feels more manageable than last year’s. That’s according to Jay Nichols, the executive director of the Vermont Principals' Association. But it’s still pretty bad.
Nichols said he can still remember being a superintendent in Essex and receiving hundreds of applications for an elementary school teaching job.
“That doesn’t happen anywhere anymore,” he said. “I mean, in a place like Essex, you might get 30 people applying for an elementary job. And then in the rural areas, it's really hard. And oftentimes you don't get anybody.”
The state has been trying lately to make it easier and cheaper to get a teaching license. The Agency of Education has been issuing a growing number of emergency and provisional licenses to educators as districts increasingly hire people from non-traditional backgrounds.
In a place like Essex, you might get 30 people applying for an elementary job. And then in the rural areas, it's really hard. And oftentimes you don't get anybody.Jay Nichols, Vermont Principals' Association
Back in Barre, Cash finds just the kind of people she’s looking for. Two teachers are on their laptops at Espresso Bueno, a local coffee shop. The problem, of course, is that they already have jobs. And when Cash makes it clear she won’t poach anyone, they applaud her for her being so kind — other administrators, they note, are resorting to offering jobs to educators already under contract elsewhere.
While Cash and Rivers are looking in neighboring towns, other districts are beginning to cast an even wider net. In the North Country Supervisory Union, which serves Newport and surrounding towns, several teachers will be coming from the Philippines this year.
A special visa program that allows foreign educators to teach in the U.S. for up to five years has recently grown in popularity — particularly in America’s rural schools. The state doesn’t track how many teachers in Vermont are currently here on J-1 visas.
Nichols, from the principals’ association, said that while use of the program isn’t yet common, interest is growing.
North Country Superintendent Elaine Collins said that after getting messages from international staffing agencies for some time now, she is taking the leap.
“It'll be an experiment. We'll see how that goes,” Collins said.
A week after her trek to Barre, Vermont Public checked in with Cash. Her trip north didn’t yield any candidates, and the principal has since had to have difficult conversations with staff about what that will mean for their workloads — and hers. When anyone is out sick, it’ll be her and Rivers back in the classroom.
She’s worried about the strain of teachers and administrators taking on multiple jobs. But she’s also making an effort to preserve the more joyful parts of public education, and staying relentlessly positive.
“We have to be. We don’t have a choice. No I'm kidding, we do have a choice. But we choose the sunny side,” she said.
And so late last week, Cash and Rivers took to the road again. This time, it was to drive to each and every incoming kindergartner's home, and drop off a book.
Have questions, comments, or tips? Send us a message.
_
