BY PHILL BARNETT
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
FRANKFORT — Dr. Robbie Fletcher, Lawrence County Superintendent and former Sheldon Clark High School principal, and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear were among those to speak in Frankfort Monday at a press event held by the Kentucky Association of School Administrators.
The KASA called the press conference to bring attention to the shortage of teachers in Kentucky. According to Beshear, there are 11,000 teacher vacancies in schools across the Commonwealth. This shortage was already an issue pre-2020 but was worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Fletcher is the co-chair of the Retention focus area group for the KASA’s Coalition to Sustain the Education Profession Steering Committee, along with Dr. Jason Glass, the commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Education.
The Coalition is led by Executive Director Dr. Rhonda Caldwell, who has recruited experts from the fields of elementary, high school and post-secondary education, business, industry, labor and government to provide policy recommendations for the state of Kentucky.
The Retention group focuses on making sure new and existing teachers continue their positions as long as possible.
“Whenever you get the opportunity to speak on behalf of teachers, on behalf of the educators, it’s really just an honor to do so,” said Fletcher.
Fletcher spoke at the press conference Monday emphasizing the drastic reduction in applicants for teaching positions in eastern Kentucky.
“I made a comment at yesterday’s presser that I was a middle school principal once upon a time, and I was talking to a good friend of mine, who was a principal in Northern Kentucky,” said Fletcher. “And I was complaining because I only had three certified applicants for a Language Arts position in middle school. Now, if I would get three certified applicants for a middle school Language Arts position, I would be thrilled.”
Fletcher and others from the Coalition pointed out that teacher retention and recruitment are essential to reducing the shortage.
“We need to find ways to not only keep the teachers that we have but also to find ways to recruit the best and the brightest,” said Fletcher. “Maybe they’re an excellent Math student in high school, or maybe they’re an excellent English student, or maybe they just have great people skills and connect with young people. We have got to find ways to find those students so that they want to be educated, they want to be teachers, they want to move on. But we have to make it so they can support their families.”
In a tweet Tuesday morning Governor Beshear said, “Kentucky is losing teachers. We can’t remain competitive because we rank 44th nationwide for starting teacher pay. And without teachers to lead our classrooms, our children are falling behind. Our teachers, school staff and children deserve better.”
In a progress report published by the Coalition, the team recommends six strategies to begin addressing the teacher shortage. The Coalition recommends conducting a comprehensive study of the education system, improving the teacher certification program in Kentucky, exploring financial recruitment incentives, joining forces between disparate programs to create a single “Be a Kentucky Teacher” portal for applicants, creating a grant-funded mandate that school districts create a teacher recruitment and induction system, and communicating more effectively the importance and value of Kentucky educators.
Beshear used the press conference Monday as an opportunity to further promote his “Education First” plan.
Beshear’s plan for Kentucky’s public school system seeks to improve benefits and incentives for employees, students, and their families. It includes a 5% raise for all public school employees, funding for universal pre-K, restoration of teacher pensions, a loan forgiveness program with $3,000 in annual relief for each year of employment in a Kentucky public school, restoration of funding for textbooks and professional development, and support for social and mental health in the school system.
While the Democratic governor is counting on a Republican-run state legislature to put his plan into action, the proposal has supporters from both sides of the aisle, especially among school officials.
“When it comes to Education First, I believe if any plan will support not only teachers but also our bus drivers, our cooks, janitors, our classified people, you will not find a single superintendent that would be opposed to that,” said Dr. Fletcher.
Governor Beshear, Dr. Fletcher and the entire Coalition to Sustain the Education Profession agree: Kentucky’s school system must become a more competitive employer in order to solve the teacher shortage.
Visit https://education.ky.gov/teachers/NxGenProf/pages/certification.aspx to learn more about becoming a teacher in the state of Kentucky.