NEWPORT, Ky. — There's a teacher shortage nationwide, and even after a few months off for summer break, many teachers are experiencing burnout.
From masking protocols to virtual learning, teachers were forced to quickly adapt and change the way they traditionally taught a classroom throughout the pandemic.
“Trying to teach virtually, teaching from home for that first year of COVID and then last year, we were still having to deal with COVID,” superintendent of Newport Independent Schools, Tony Watts said.
“Teachers had to also deal with some of the things that were happening socially, you know, this whole critical race theory thing that we have to go through now and which, you know, none of us teach.”
According to Watts, some teachers in the Newport Independent School District have decided to retire, while others have decided to leave the profession altogether.
“Some have decided that they can go do something else because this has just been becoming too stressful for them,” Watts said.
“I think the whole teaching field there has been a shortage of teachers even getting into colleges to go into education.”
The Dean of the College of Education, Health, and Society at Miami University, Jason Lane, said the teacher shortage is trickling down to the number of students interested in pursuing a college degree in education.
“It's probably the greatest workforce challenge that we have right now as a society,” Lane said.
“The fact that we don't have enough people interested in becoming teachers and teachers are leaving at an unprecedented rate. If schools shut down, think about the ripple effect.”
It’s been increasingly difficult for districts to find teachers. Miami University is working hand in hand with districts to try and encourage more young people to think about teaching.
“We're launching a new program in Cincinnati called Teach Cincinnati in partnership with CPS, where we're trying to work with freshmen and sophomore students in high school to think about teaching profession and then mentoring them into teaching.”
The first 7 students in that cohort will start as Freshmen at Miami University this fall.
Lane said Miami has one of the few education programs in Ohio that is not seeing decreases in enrollment.
“We really need to think as a society, how do we uplift the teaching profession? How do we place it in a more positive note? How do we champion individuals to realize that education probably is one of the most important things that they can do and pursue as a career?”
Superintendent Watts said they have a shortage of math and science teachers at Newport independent Schools this year, so they are currently hiring.
You can see all of the open positions and apply on the school district’s website.
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