Schools Are Looking in Unusual Places to Deal With Teacher Shortage

Nationwide, school districts are dealing with what many administrators are calling the toughest teacher recruiting season they have ever experienced. Schools are racing to fill classroom openings with qualified educators as the school year begins, with many holding out hope that they won’t have to resort to long-term substitutes, cutting classes or increasing class sizes.

“We’re going through one of the worst shortages we’ve ever seen,” said Charity Comella, the human-resources director at a school district outside Princeton, N.J. “It’s like dog-eat-dog, all of the school districts are getting very competitive with each other.”

State education departments and legislatures are working to bolster the teacher pipeline, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to create teacher residency programs, boost salaries and cover the costs of a credential for those working in the highest-need schools. Many states are also loosening requirements to become a teacher, calling them needlessly onerous.

Tens of thousands of teacher vacancies exist across the country, according to state education departments. Indiana schools are seeking more than 1,700 classroom positions. Delaware has 500 openings. An Iowa job board lists more than 1,400 teacher jobs, with another nearly 700 posted in Ohio.

Some states have increased salaries; New Mexico teachers now start at between $50,000 and $70,000, an increase of as much as 25%. Teachers earn an average of $65,300 nationally, with average starting salaries of $41,770, according to the National Education Association.

Many administrators say the pandemic strained what has for years been a tight teacher labor market. The number of students completing teacher preparation programs fell 30% between 2010-11 and 2019-20, according to the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

Some teachers have retired early or left the profession because of pandemic-induced burnout, and others are feeling pressured by public scrutiny of school curricula and laws in several states dictating what can be taught in classrooms.

“In the beginning of the pandemic teachers were heroes, now they’re being portrayed negatively,” said Laura Jeanne Penrod, a high-school teacher in Las Vegas. “I think people are tired of not being treated as professionals.”

In New Jersey’s Freehold Regional High School District, an annual job fair that attracted almost 500 candidates in 2018 drew 126 this year, for the same number of around 50 openings. The district, which pays higher salaries than others, filled the vacancies. But over the summer, teachers have unexpectedly retired, leaving director of personnel Jennifer Sharp needing to poach from neighboring districts or ask teachers to give up prep periods.

“We just kick the can down the road to a different school district until someone ends up without a math teacher,” Dr. Sharp said. Adding to the recruiting challenge is a desire by many to diversify the teaching profession to better reflect student populations, Dr. Sharp and others said.

In Alabama, two years of policy changes have improved the teacher shortage, though it is still in “crisis proportions” in special education and rural counties, said

Eric Mackey,

the state’s superintendent of education.

Anyone can now teach in Alabama with a license from another state, and 3,000 people reclaimed lapsed certificates through a clemency program. One Alabama school of education saw a 40% enrollment boost after the state eliminated entrance exams. Dr. Mackey said the changes are about making reasonable accommodations to find teachers, not lowering the standards.

“We’ve done all these things to hold the gap,” said Dr. Mackey, “but long term the only real fix is to convince more 18-year-olds that teaching is a good career.” To that end, the state has been running a pro-teaching campaign on social media.

Louisiana is also trying to entice teenagers into the profession, with nearly 50 school systems there offering college credits in high school for entry-level education courses, State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley said. The state tallied the number of teacher vacancies for the first time this year, recording 2,520 openings in January, which he said helped spur the legislature to pass measures to ease the burden.

“We cannot accept there are not enough people to hire,” Dr. Brumley said.

Researchers at Rand Corp. recently concluded that an increase in desired staffing levels has strained the teaching market more than a mass exodus from the profession. More than three-quarters of district leaders Rand surveyed said they had expanded substitute or regular teaching ranks since before the pandemic.

Dozens of districts will be turning to a contingency plan made more palatable since the pandemic: having a virtual teacher.

Proximity Learning, an Austin-based company that streams certified teachers into physical classrooms, has seen demand double since last year to 158 districts, said founder and Chief Executive Evan Erdberg. The company has a stable of 1,500 teachers for courses as wide-ranging as high school math, culinary arts and choir.

“Five years ago we were a Band-Aid,” Mr. Erdberg said. “Now we’re the long-term strategy.”

Elevate K-12, another virtual-teacher provider, will be in 336 districts this year, triple the number from a year ago.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools in Tennessee is using 38 high-school teachers from Proximity this year, one of several tactics that have helped the district become 97% staffed.

“We have to figure out quickly how to live in a space with different ways of teaching,” said Monica Jordan, the district’s director of high school programs.

Other stopgaps include hiring long-term substitutes, asking teachers to work during prep periods, combining classes and pulling administrators and district-office staff into classrooms.

“It’s this vicious cycle, where the fixes that are emergency measures end up burning out existing teachers and principals,” said Laura Boyce, the executive director of Teach Plus Pennsylvania.

Several states, including Georgia, are allowing retirees to return to teaching with minimal or no impact on retirement earnings.

Others are easing licensing requirements or allowing reciprocity with other states. Florida is completing a rule to give qualifying military veterans—with no bachelor’s degrees but some college credit—temporary five-year teaching licenses. Arizona is letting college students begin teaching in the classroom.

Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, said that while he appreciates more pathways into the profession, the veterans program “will not solve the greatest challenge facing our schools unless we address the issues driving educators away—low pay and a lack of professional respect.”

School leaders say retaining current staff is just as important as recruiting, to prevent more gaps down the line.

An influx of federal stimulus money has allowed many districts to pay sign-on and retention bonuses, often of around $1,000 to $5,000. Detroit offers $15,000 higher pay for special-education teachers.

Kimberly Willis took over as human-resources director of a five-school charter district in Arkansas in July and has hustled to fill 16 vacancies, about 10% of her staff. Three classrooms still needed teachers by the start of school, which began Monday.

She will resort to recruiting college students earning teaching certificates and is already looking ahead at how to keep her staff in place.

“We have to be mindful of how to make the field of education interesting enough that teachers are thriving by December,” she said, “and not saying: I can’t wait until the year is over.”

Write to Sara Randazzo at sara.randazzo@wsj.com