Montana schools have faced a staggering shortage of teachers for years especially
in rural areas and on Native American reservations the pandemic brought new
urgency and new ideas for how to tackle the crisis Stan Parker of Montana PBS
reports on a new program that hopes to inspire the next generation of teachers
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in Mandy knits's haverhigh classroom these students are learning what a career in education
is all about like Emerald Tinsley I really enjoy working with kids and helping kids and I just want
what I do to make an impact the program called teachers of Promise Pathways is run by Montana
State University Northern it allows high school students to earn college credit putting them on a
quicker path to getting back in the classroom as teachers so here's what I would like you
to do for a few minutes today emerald and her classmates are looking at all the open jobs for
teachers in the state there's a lot of openings on that first page and then you'll see that you
can go to page 10 and Beyond and that's just for the state of Montana there's like six openings
it's a glimpse into the teacher's shortage in Montana and Nationwide that those in
education are calling a crisis for one thing we have empty classrooms in our building and
actually have more students this year when we than we have in years but we don't have the staff
to fill the classrooms the writing's been on the wall for years but during the pandemic the number
of jobs going unfilled has skyrocketed and so a lot of teachers I think just said I just can't
keep doing this because there wasn't a clear end in sight the mission now is to both recruit and
retain teachers something schools in Rural and Reservation Montana have been grappling
with for a long time Curtis smebe chairs the Haver school board and helped put this program together
his goal is to get more school districts involved so when folks ask me where are
the teachers of tomorrow I often say to high school principals and superintendents
they're already in your classrooms you just got to get them started on it
21 Montana legislators passed a law to fund more programs like this one the bill also lets students
get more college credits for free while still in high school and once the students are in college
they'll receive up to ten thousand dollars in tuition reimbursement if they teach for three
years in a high need area we need the teachers and we we need them sooner rather than later
um we also know that most teachers will teach within about a 50 mile radius of where they
themselves graduated from high school classroom experience is a key part of
the student-to-teacher pipeline but some students like Emerald have taken that a
step further by actually working as unlicensed staff in elementary schools she works four days
a week at a fourth grade classroom at Sunnyside Intermediate School giving students personalized
attention when they need it all right we'll vote one more time who wants to do popcorn reading
leading a reading group and even getting a head start saving up for retirement through the state's
pension plan it gives me something to look forward to every day I'm always super excited to come here
they're either going to realize they want to be a teacher or they're not right and so why go off
to college and spend four years thinking I want to meet a teacher and then realize that we're
not Pax Haslam is the principal at Sunnyside what's it like trying to keep a school fully
staffed in Haver Montana it's difficult I think so right now I am short one special education
teacher in our district every building's short a special education teacher so yeah my day is
doing a lot of covering right now as a principal I average just over a day per week where I'm in
the classroom pay for teachers still lags more than 30 percent behind other college educated
professionals a wage Gap that's grown steadily over the past 10 years you start to think about
paying the bills and the price of gas and the price of homes and the price of mortgage and
rent and teacher salaries aren't keeping up with it job-related stress for teachers and principals
is more than twice that of the average working adult and surveys since March 2020 show 25 to 50
percent of teachers and principals are thinking about leaving their jobs within the next year
so what will it take to make sure Montana students can count on getting good teachers
you know there's no magic bullet to this not only does pay have to be better the culture the school
treating people well so there's not only one it's it's many and we've I think neglected that for
many years so we got ketchup to do until then job Seekers like Emerald will enter a job market far
different than the previous generation of teachers told us that when she was applying for her job
she was competing against about 40 other people for one English job at the middle school that's a
good thing because that means there were lots of people wanting to be teachers and now we
don't have to fight like that for PBS news weekend I'm Stan Parker in Havre, Montana.