The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
With the start of the 2022-23 school year looming, district officials are looking to “plan B” to fill some teaching spots.
As of August 19, there were about 41 teaching positions open in the district, which amounts to about 4 percent of the total teaching staff, district spokeswoman Mary Clark said.
Students report to school on September 7. Teachers’ first day is September 1.
“Of those vacancies a large percentage are in the special education area, followed by the world language area,” Clark said in an email.
Schools Superintendent John Ravally said that this is not a new problem, nor is it special to the district.
“Finding new, qualified candidates, with the proper certification in areas such as secondary special education is a challenge for many districts,” he said.
School districts across the country are coming up with ways to deal with what is in some cases severe teacher shortages.
Some schools are not offering specific classes due to not having anyone to teach them.
Some districts have cut the school week to four days.
There are also reports of states allowing college students or military veteran to teach, regardless of whether they have any teaching experience.
The situation has not reached that level in Franklin, officials say.
“The district continues to actively recruit permanent teachers to fill vacant positions and continues to place long term substitute teachers to address the void,” Clark said.
Administrators at other schools in the township said they’re not feeling the pinch.
Rutgers Prep spokesman Terrence Ladd said in an email that the school, “has not experienced a decline in quality applicants for teaching positions.”
Oguz Yildiz, the Lead Person at Thomas Edison EnergySmart Charter School, said the school, “has not experienced a great shortage this year. We are currently looking for only two additional positions to supplement the faculty we already have on our team. We are set to start the new year.”
Nan Menon, the Chief Education Officer at Cedar Hill Prep School, said the school had two retirements and two teachers who relocated, but, “considering we are a small school, we are not impacted as other larger schools are.”
