(upbeat ambient music) - Live from your public media studios, WVIA Presents Keystone Edition Reports, a public affairs program that goes beyond the headlines to address issues in Northeastern and central Pennsylvania.

This is Keystone Edition Reports.

And now moderator, Larry Vojtko.

- Good evening, I'm Larry Vojtko.

All of us at some point have been touched by the work of the teachers who come into our lives, be it at the elementary level, the high school level, or beyond.

The knowledge and wisdom given to us by these devoted individuals often follow us throughout our lives, allowing us in turn to share that wisdom with the next generation.

There's an issue in Pennsylvania, however, a shortage of teachers.

Many teachers are working on emergency teaching permits, which means they may not be as well versed in a subject as a teacher who has the specialized certification.

During this program, we'll explore this troubling topic with a panel of experts.

First, though, Keystone Edition Reports, Paul Lazar gives us a perimeter.

- [Paul] Great teachers can touch our lives with lessons and wisdom that can last a lifetime.

They come to us at an early age holding a very special set of keys, the keys to future success, to being a better, more well-rounded person and to guide us along as we discover our individual educational strengths and weaknesses.

But recently, the pool of teachers in the state of Pennsylvania has been shrinking, and a Penn State University study released in late 2022 said that for the first time in Pennsylvania history, more teacher positions have been filled by those who hold emergency permits than teachers who are newly certified.

Only 6,000 new teachers were certified in Pennsylvania last year, down from 21,000 a decade ago.

Some schools in our region, such as Hanover Area and Riverside have turned to private substitute recruiting companies for help.

But experts say that's a temporary solution to a much bigger problem.

So why is this happening?

Whatever the answer happens to be, the ones that are affected the most are the kids sitting at their desks with pencils in hand, eager and willing to learn about the world around them.

For Keystone Edition Reports, I'm Paul Lazar.

- Well, let's welcome our guests who are here to share their expertise on the topic.

Joining us here in the studio are Jessica Sabel, the Region Advocacy Coordinator for the PSEA.

Gregory Frigoletto, Superintendent of the Wayne Highland School District.

And Dr. Brooke K Langen, the Dean of the College of Education at East Strausberg University.

Welcome, welcome to the Ceroni Theater and WVIA.

Thanks for being part of this important conversation.

What could possibly be more important than educating the next generation?

But I'll start with you Jessica Sabel.

Give us an idea of the nature and scope of the problem.

We saw a few of the statistics in the opening package.

What data can you provide regarding the certification of teachers and perhaps the teachers leaving the profession?

- Yeah, well, just for starters, thank you Larry for having us on the show.

I mean, this is an extremely important topic.

We could all agree that is something that we need to be speaking about and working together on.

So thank you for hosting this and WVIA for having us.

This is an extremely difficult situation that we're in, right, from 2010 to 2020, we saw the amount of certification one levels of teaching decrease by 65%.

Right over a 10 year period, we saw a 65% decrease, which is a big deal.

Right, that's major.

When we look at the attitudes of our current teachers, right, so the people who are in the profession right now, the National Education Association did a survey of the current workforce, and over half of them are considering leaving the profession earlier than expected.

Right, and when we look at teaching, it's usually, it's a career, it's not a job, it's a lifetime career.

So for an educator to be thinking about leaving earlier than expected, that's a different, that's a trend, and it's a trend that we don't like, right.

it's not good.

So it's important that we talk about this today.

- That's right.

And so we're learning that people are not going into teaching as much as they did even 10 years ago.

So Dr. Langen, you're the dean of the College of Education at East Stroudsburg University.

And East Stroudsburg University grew out of the normal school system that was established in Pennsylvania in the mid 19th century, specifically to train teachers.

So tell us about the experience right now at East Stroudsburg University.

How is the enrollment?

And then on the other side, the placement, how is placement going got for your teachers?

- Got it.

So enrollments have been down since Covid.

We've seen an overall decrease in enrollments for the college of education, as well as the entire university.

Those numbers are rebounding, which is exciting.

In the college ved, we did not have such a big drop as we saw with the university's enrollments, but it is quite a bit less than we had 10 years ago.

Those numbers are changing, so that's good.

What that does for us is it allows us to be able to get incoming students who wanna be teachers and get them out into the field.

And I think that's what we believe is the strongest piece to making sure that we're getting prepared students to become prepared teachers who don't wanna leave the field.

And we do that through making sure that we have partnerships with our local school districts and that we have those close relationships that we can talk about.

What are you looking for?

What are areas where we can improve that we might not be doing at this current point in time?

So I think that conversation has to be an open, transparent conversation where we, it's an exchange of information about needs and what we can do to make sure that our students when they are in the field, that they're taking that theory and applying it to practice.

- Mm-hmm.

What about the placement on the other end?

You know, the students will go into student teaching and then they have to find a job.

- So it's an easy sell for us when students come to our school to be teachers because we are finding that our students are getting placed into full-time teaching positions even before they graduate.

So that's fantastic for our students.

Often we're getting calls 12 weeks into student teaching saying, "This student's doing a great job.

Can we hire them immediately?"

So it's awesome for our students, but I understand coming from a school district, it's really difficult because they are not able to fill those positions.

We have one principal who mentioned he's an elementary principal.

Typically he was getting 200 applications for one elementary position, and just recently he only got four.

- Hmm.

- So the demand is great and we'll work hard with our partners to make sure that we can fill that need as quickly as.

- Right, demand is great, supply is not.

- You got it.

- Gregory, Frigoletto, you've experienced just about every aspect of the education profession.

So before we go on, could you just give us a little snapshot of your career?

- Yeah, Larry, thank you.

So I've been very fortunate, first off that I've been at one district for my entire career and I've been in this district, Wayne Highland School District for 30 years, I started in elementary.

I was a fourth grade teacher and I loved every minute of every day that I did that, and I did it for six years.

From there, I was fortunate to go on to be a high school administrator.

I was a building principal in a K-8 building.

Went back to the high school as a high school principal, and I'm in year 12 as district superintendent.

And this topic today, which I think we all agree, is an extremely important topic because in that experience that I've had, what I've noticed and recognized, and I think everybody would agree with, is that one of the most important keys to success in regard to achievement is high quality instruction.

And the consistency of having people provide that has been kind of a standard that we've had in education for a long time.

And it's becoming harder to do that.

We have two things that we're struggling with, we have people that have had careers that are leaving early and we're having fewer people want to enter.

So as we sit today, there are some solutions that have been presented.

You know, the state has come up with some ideas on some short term solutions.

Finding creative ways to increase our substitute pool, whether it be retirees.

We're actually being able to put into place current college students who are going and pursuing education degrees.

If they have 60 credits in, we can hire them for up to 20 days.

So there are multiple ways we're able to put bodies in the buildings as a short-term solution, but there's also some great looks coming from the state at some potential long-term solutions.

- So the state has recognized this problem.

- Correct.

- And is putting forth a plan of some sort.

Could you tell me more about that?

Jessica, can you take that?

- We'll be getting in the fall of 2023 for the next school year, votech, vocational technical students will be able to actually study and learn about the possibility of a career in education.

That is a first for the state of Pennsylvania.

That is something that is unusual, right, but it is a path for providing students the opportunity to explore the possibility of being a teacher.

So that's just one.

- And through that, through the Pennsylvania educator workforce strategy, the department then put forth, there's five focus areas, so the first one is the recruitment of more educators into the field, the second is the diversification of educators, making sure that we're getting folks into the field of education that look like the students that they teach.

So that's a big one for us.

Making sure that they have a quicker process.

I think that's one of those, we talk about some of those obstacles, the certification process.

A student can graduate and it might take them up to three months to get certified, but the PDE has said they'll work towards a two week turnover.

So it's pieces like that that we really, those focus areas are gonna be important to us to be able to work as partners to get more folks into the field in different ways, in non-traditional and I think innovative ways is what we need to lead to.

- Well, we have a perspective of another educator.

We went down to (indistinct) County and met Susan Scheeler, and she has seen it all.

She's been in the field of education for a total of 37 years.

With over 30 of those years been as a teacher and over six as an elementary school principal.

And now she's the secretary of the school board at Mahanoy City, the school district, Mahanoy Area School district.

And she spent some time speaking with us about what she's been seeing in the state regarding the teacher shortage.

(upbeat ambient music) - Just about everything up here are things that students gave me.

So they're special to me.

I keep them.

When I was a principal, I can remember hiring elementary teacher and I had a 100 applications.

Now you're lucky if you get one.

There's a lot of reasons, salaries, they're not keeping up with the inflation.

You have teacher burnout, and pandemic's a lot to blame with that.

What was even worse was when schools start to come back and there were hybrid models where the child had the choice.

And sometimes they come in for a week, they go out for a week, they come in.

That's an awful lot for a teacher to try and monitor, and we've lost teachers to cyber charter school.

They feel there's a little more support in a cyber charter 'cause all the teachers are in the same boat, so they depend on each other.

I love when parents say, "Well, I'm putting my kid in cyber charter.

It doesn't cost me anything."

Well, yes it does, 'cause the taxpayers are paying for it.

We're pretty much a poverty level district, and we don't have a whole lot of businesses to establish a tax base force.

So the taxes fall upon the people who live here, and primarily people in this area are probably senior citizens.

And you're a senior citizen and you keep raising the taxes and raising the taxes to increase salaries, it makes life too hard for them, they can't afford it, they might lose their homes.

And on the other hand, it makes them resent teachers because this is the reason my taxes are going up, because they wanna give the teachers more money.

I loved my career, I loved it.

(tranquil ambient music) I can't imagine ever having done anything else.

So these kind of things are killing our school districts.

- That's Susan Scheeler from the Mahanoy Area School District.

Now an important aspect that came to the fore was the funding of schools.

And they're funded mainly through property taxes.

So it follows then that more affluent areas, more affluent school districts and more resources.

So we'll give this to you first, Mr. Frigoletto should the quality of a child's education be dependent on that kid's zip code?

- Yeah.

So when you talk about diversity, economics obviously is a part of that conversation.

So the answer to that is no, it should not make a difference on the quality of the education that anybody receives.

and as we were talking about earlier, some of the ideas that are being promoted coming from the state, which are going to require funding, I don't think it would be fair to assume that it's going to be funding that's provided on the backs of the local taxpayers.

So when we're looking at things like salaries and minimum salaries and trying to encourage folks to get involved in this field, because when you do, you know, the cost analysis, it's going to be beneficial to get into this field.

There's going to be some, I think, requirement coming from the state to help fund some of those ideas.

- Mm-hmm.

So if we look at the funding as not only dependent on a particular school district, but perhaps look at it more, well, not globally, but more in the statewide, so that Pennsylvania is coming together to make sure the next generation is educated.

And I know at ESU, your students are coming from across the state and maybe even from a few other states as well.

Could you give us a quick overview of the curriculum that a student has to go through in order to graduate and get that initial certificate?

And it's just the first certificate that will come to that teacher?

- I think we all agree that teaching is a job of lifelong learning.

- Mm-hmm.

- So when students come to us, they're coming in with a set of curriculum that requires them to take theory and merge it into practice.

And that's not something you see in all of the degree programs at universities.

It's unique to teaching.

We're teaching an art and a skill that students have to practice.

So they'll take that, they'll go into the field.

It requires a lot of time in the field, so through partnerships with local districts, our students are getting out their first year, second year, third year and fourth year for more hours and more active engagement in the classroom so that they can learn how to teach under the guidance of mentor teachers who are practicing teachers.

They'll go through all four years doing that upwards of a 1000 hours by the time that they graduate will be spent in the field.

Prior to graduation, our students need to take tests.

So previously we had had the basic skills test, it's a competencies which our students at ESU still do, complete their basic skills.

But when they're also, when they're done, they have to take state-based tests in their content areas.

It can be upwards of one test for students that are in secondary ed with content, middle level and special education can be up to four or five different tests that they have to pass in order to then be recommended to become state certified at a level one teacher certificate.

Once they have that level one, then they're able to go into the field, but they need to continue, you don't stop there, you are required to go for another 180 hours every five years, to get to your level two certificate, you need to have 24 post baccalaureate credits.

So it doesn't stop, in the field of education, you are constantly learning, you're constantly improving your skills and constantly changing with the times.

And I think that is an important piece that educators, it's not a job that is stagnant.

And I think for people who really enjoy and embrace helping others, it's good, it's reinvigorating I would say.

We're all educators, we've all been in the classroom many years, definitely that lifelong learning piece allows you to better yourself and to always be on top of what's gonna be best for the students.

- You know, it struck me just now that it's not unlike an experience say to get a nursing degree where you're studying the theory and you have to have your clinicals and you're going out and you have to keep going and you have to keep up on the latest.

So in education, you're taking theory courses in how to teach pedagogy.

- Yes.

- You're taking, now, if you are going to be a secondary teacher in math, now you have to take math courses just like a math major has to take.

So it is a true profession.

I've heard, the point of view of some advocates for teachers and they claim that teachers are just not getting the respect that they deserve as true professionals.

Jessica Sabel, do you have any evidence to back up that point of view?

- I think if you talk to any teacher right now, yeah, they will tell you that they feel bombarded by a lot of pressures to not have autonomy in teaching their children the way that the children need to be taught.

They feel pressures constantly, just a bombardment of disrespect.

And when I talk about.

- Where's that coming from?

Where is that coming from?

- Well, we all know.

- Coming from.

- We all know, I mean, we've lived it, right?

This is the reason why there is a teacher shortage, right?

We see it every single day on the news, we see it on social media.

Our teachers are stressed, they're stressed.

- And Susan alluded to that too, this idea that's connected with just regular citizens kind of having a resentment that they're going to have to pay this and it's increasing, and so it's a difficult not to crack I think.

what do you.

- You know, so I would agree that there is a feeling amongst the ranks, rightfully so, that they're probably working harder than they've ever worked before.

So the accountability has risen, the rigor has risen, but at the same time, the scrutiny has risen.

But the scrutiny is really more of a perspective issue than it is a reality.

If you were to go in and out of classrooms around the districts in this area, you would find that there are still tremendous things happening.

You know, all of us sitting around this table, and I think we talked about this earlier.

If I were to ask each of you the question of can you tell me a teacher in your life that was foundational that inspired you, like that, we could all name that person.

Those people still exist in our buildings.

That's still happening every day in our buildings.

What we need to do through this discussion, through the different ideas that we've talked about to recruit people into it, is to get the right people on the bus, the people on the bus in the right seats to continue to be those individuals that are inspiring others to get into this field, to grow into this field and hopefully advance the profession.

- I agree, and to support them and to find out, what we're starting to see is that in many school districts, the paraprofessionals are folks who probably have a degree or are very close to a degree, what is holding them back from becoming teachers.

And so those are some of the partnerships that we work with districts and we talk to those people and say, "What is it that's holding you back?"

And a lot of people will say, "I can't leave my job and my benefits to student teach."

So we need to come up with innovative ways in order to be able to support them so that they can continue to work and continue to get paid as adults while they pursue that love of teaching.

There are lots of people out there that wanna do it, but there are obstacles like this that we have to be creative and innovative.

And those are the partnerships we talk about.

- And I think it's important to know too that it is not an easy profession, so you can't go into it thinking it's going to be easy.

And you know, like I said earlier, I've never opened a school year and being able to say, I have good news this year, there's less to do.

- Yes.

- Every year there's more to do.

And we've all become accustomed to doing more with less.

And we've gotten actually quite good at it.

But again, going back to the topic that we're discussing today, we need more people in the ranks to help us out.

- Yes.

Our teachers right now and our support professionals are doing amazing work every single day in spite of.

- Agreed.

- Everything that they're experiencing, right?

So we need to take care of them.

When we look at the actual educator pipeline, we need to think about our younger people and what they look for in a profession.

Right, our generation Z, they look at extrinsic rewards to actually look into a career.

They wanna be paid well, right, they want good benefits, they wanna work-life balance.

However, what keeps them in a job are those intrinsic rewards?

Do they feel valued in their workforce?

Do they feel as though they have a voice in their workplace?

Do they feel as though they're part of something bigger than themselves?

Right?

And that is what education is, that is what teaching is, it's being part of something that's bigger than yourself.

So we have to not only support those teachers who are in the trenches, who are sticking it out, right, God love them, they're sticking it out.

How do we also increase the teacher pipeline, get those people into the profession and support them as well, because they need those intrinsic rewards to stay in the position.

They need that feeling of being a part of the betterment of society, right.

And when you have these added layers of scrutiny added to that, and, you know, it's hard, it's hard for our younger generation to be able to see through that, like our older generations can.

Right, and be able to stick it out and be there for the kids.

So we have to do whatever we can to support them.

- Yes, it seems that more and more we're hearing from the younger generations that I wanna make a difference.

I want to do something that really fills me up and makes me want to move ahead and have a purpose.

So this seems like a perfect opportunity for those who are education teachers, educators to try to tap into that.

Have you seen Dr. Langen, and have you have has thing, what is ESU doing on that?

We could call it marketing in a way.

How are you trying to persuade how have things changed in the time that you've been at ESU?

or in the profession totally that now you have to come up with these methods to attract these students, the high schoolers into the profession.

- Yeah, and I think that does fall on our plate and us and the school districts, but what we're seeing are these two pipelines.

The first pipeline are those returning adults who may have a degree, who may be career changers, I myself was a career changer after only six years in my first career.

So we have that group and that group really comes in with a big heart.

So we talked about the obstacles they face and how do we support them.

So we do have partnerships with our local intermediate unit, with local school districts working with their paraprofessionals to bring them in and work together for course reimbursements, things like that, so that's taking that financial burden off of those individuals.

Then we have to think about the younger generation.

And so the state had put together an inspire to educate group with a grant, and they worked on a teacher pipeline recruitment toolkit, which is really amazing.

It looks at how do you personalize education and what do we do when we partner with school districts to get students interested, let's say in eighth grade in a future teacher club, future educators of America.

And then when they come into high school and they start part of that program, how does the university engage with them?

Do we invite them to campus so they can be an education student for the day?

Do we go out to them so that we can talk more about, have panels where they can learn more about the ins and outs of education that maybe if somebody in their family wasn't an educator, they may not know.

- Right.

- So we are in the process of working on those different types of programs with our local school districts to be able to create those pipelines for all students.

- Well, it looks like as we come to the end of our conversation, that we all have to work together, the colleges, the trainers, the school districts, the PSEA and the state and the other governments coming to, and citizens.

Well, I would like to thank our panelists for participating and thank you for joining us.

(upbeat ambient music) For more information, please visit wvi.org/keystonereports.

And remember, you can rewatch this episode on demand anytime online or on the WVIA app.

For Keystone Edition, I'm Larry Vojtko.

Thanks so much for watching.