Teacher retirements on rise, school districts say

Kansas school districts are reporting a higher pace of retirements in the past few years, even as the number of newly licensed teachers remains flat.

More than 2,000 teachers retired last school year, or double the number that did so five years earlier, the Kansas State Department of Education revealed last week in an annual snapshot of the state’s education work force.

That is strong growth in retirements, but Scott Myers, head of teacher licensure at the department, says it represents self-reported data from school districts and is subject to error.

The report, presented to the Kansas State Board of Education this month, indicates 2,533 new teachers received licenses last year — almost the same number as five years earlier. The number of students in the state crept up by 13,400 over the same period of time.

School districts also reported a drop last year in the number of licensed elementary teachers they employ.

This summer, schools in some rural areas of the state met with unexpected difficulties in filling jobs at that level.

“It’s unheard of,” deputy education commissioner Dale Dennis said Wednesday, adding that elementary jobs have always been the easiest for schools to fill. “The pool is really changing.”

In years past, he said, some districts didn’t even advertise their elementary positions because they received a steady stream of resumes for them.

Steve Karlin, deputy superintendent of Garden City USD 457, says his district first noticed a shortage of elementary applicants last year.

“We’ve always faced a challenge getting people to consider living in rural Kansas,” Karlin said, but the district hasn’t normally lacked elementary teachers. “This summer it was a challenge from the beginning.”

Garden City’s starting salary is $37,012, and it offers up to $5,000 in tuition reimbursement for graduate studies and up to $100 a month to match retirement savings.

“We’re very competitive,” Karlin said.

The 7,600-student district recruits nationally, too, and this summer administrators visited career fairs in 10 states.

Despite these efforts, Garden City is short seven elementary teachers this year. The district hired five long-term substitutes and dealt with the other two positions by shifting students and increasing class sizes.

Dodge City USD 443 had a similar experience.

“It’s seldom we can’t find satisfactory elementary candidates,” superintendent Alan Cunningham said.

This year, though, the district started school with five long-term substitutes, including a few at the elementary level. Starting the year with even one, he said, is unusual for his district.

The 6,700-student district, which is seeing some of the highest enrollment growth in the state, according to the Kansas Association of School Boards, normally lures many of its job candidates from other districts.

The difficulty of filling jobs this year has Cunningham wondering whether teachers are less comfortable leaving trusted jobs to try new opportunities.

“The issue of school finance is so up in the air,” he said.

It is unclear whether the shortage of elementary candidates that some schools are reporting will continue.

The number of fully licensed elementary teachers employed last year in Kansas schools fell by about 2,000 teachers, according to the personnel snapshot. Yet many Kansas districts aren’t seeing a shortage of candidates at all, raising the likelihood that if the candidate pool has shrunk, it might be hitting rural and western Kansas districts hardest.

In the Topeka area, some superintendents said they had plenty of job applicants this summer. Shawnee Heights USD 450 superintendent Marty Stessman said his district had more than 100 resumes for just 10 jobs.

“We are seeing fewer applicants — significantly fewer applicants — but it’s not at a point where it’s critical or a crisis yet,” Stessman said.

The concerns about elementary candidates may be new, but schools have long struggled with shortages in more specialized areas.

The U.S. Department of Education has documented a shortage of special education teachers in Kansas for two decades.

Karlin said having fewer elementary applicants compounds that problem. That is because school districts can provisionally fill special education openings with general education candidates if the teachers agree to pursue additional credentials. In past years, the surplus of elementary applicants was helpful for that reason.

Garden City started school this year with four unfilled special education jobs and addressed that in part with long-term substitutes, too.

During the past several months, the state board has loosened licensure requirements for special education and a few other hard-to-fill, specialized teaching jobs in hopes of alleviating shortages.

But some groups warn if Kansans want more teachers to enter the profession, the state must do more to make education an attractive career.

“Pay needs to be a priority,” said Mark Farr, president of the Kansas National Education Association, adding that potential educators can choose other jobs or teach in nearby states with higher salaries. “Candidates have choices.”

Annual rankings from the National Education Association, with which the KNEA is affiliated, indicate Kansas’ average teacher pay has been sinking relative to other states, dropping from No. 37 five years ago to No. 42 last year.