Tennessee districts are facing 1,000 teaching vacancies. A new report says strategic school staffing might help.

Students in a classroom (Photo by Pexels)

School districts across the state began the 2022/23 school year with one thousand teaching vacancies according to data from the Tennessee Department of Education .

Sharon Roberts (Photo by SCORE)

A new report from the State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) found this issue isn’t new and it’s creating a decade-long revolving door of long-term substitute teachers.

“Tennessee has a decades-long history of addressing educator talent issues grounded in evidence that teacher effectiveness is central to improving student outcomes,” said SCORE Chief K-12 Impact Officer Sharon Roberts. “Access to an effective teacher is the number one school-based factor for improving student outcomes.”

School district leaders across the state have been working to fill those vacancies and provide students with access to reliable and effective teachers but SCORE found recent state investments are only tackling part of the problem.  The report stated many of Tennessee’s current strategies place priority on attracting new educator talents and retaining them while challenges currently employed teachers are facing frequently contribute to teaching vacancies.

According to the report, Tennessee currently loses one in five teachers in the first three years.SCORE shared a list of guiding principles that have proven effective at helping improve teaching vacancies in out of state school districts. One key proposal is to adopt a strategic school staffing model that elevates effective teachers to serve a coaching role for novice teachers.The Ector County Schools district in Texas and the Edgecombe County Schools district in North Carolina have both seen success using strategic school staffing.  According to SCORE’s report, both districts reported lower teacher turnover following a move to strategic school staffing.

“The state of Tennessee is, right now, perfectly designed to create 1,000 teacher vacancies a year. And when you own that and believe that and look at your systems and processes, it forces us to create change,” said Ector County Schools Superintendent Dr. Scott Muri.

In Tennessee, Clarksville-Mongomery County School System (CMCSS) and Hamilton County Schools are both implementing strategic school staffing changes.CMCSS is currently working to build diversity into its teacher pipeline to combat teacher shortages. The district developed two primary teacher-leader roles at the elementary and middle school levels, and created a model that allows teachers to maintain ongoing support among the teacher residents.Hamilton County Schools is creating a new teacher leader role that allows veteran educators to continue to work with students, support educators, and fill a support gap by offering support to a small team of teachers.

The SCORE report is the latest in a series that explores broader trends and challenges in the state’s educator labor market.