With principals in crisis mode, new state law taps into thousands of potential teacher recruits

[TexasTowelie]

In Washington state, one in five principals last fall said they were in a “crisis mode” as they tried to find enough teachers to fill every classroom.

The most challenging position they struggled to fill, according to a state survey, was for teachers in special-education programs. Nearly two-thirds of principals said they found it difficult to find teachers for those classrooms.

But a new state law may offer principals some relief by tapping into a deep recruiting pool of thousands of educators who already work with special-needs and other at-risk students.

“As a future workforce of teachers, this is kind of a gold mine,” said Cathy Smith, a paraeducator who has worked for 20 years in Olympia schools.

Read more: http://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/with-principals-in-crisis-mode-new-state-law-taps-into-thousands-of-potential-teacher-recruits/

[Squinch]

1. I am not a teacher but I work in multiple schools. In the past 5 or so years, I have begun to think

that part of my job is to notice and comfort all those teachers who sit in their darkened classrooms during their preps and have a good cry because their jobs suck so bad and because they are so badly treated and because the demands on them are so impossible to meet. I come across one or more of these poor things most weeks.

It is no wonder that there are shortages.

Paraeducators are wonderful. But they are not the answer to this problem. Some of them might want to become teachers, but once they do, they will face the same impossible demands and this cycle will start all over again.