New study finds over a quarter of Arizona teaching positions are unfilled

A new report from the Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association (ASPAA) indicates over 25.4% of state teacher vacancies remain unfilled this year. The report also shows that 52.2% of the vacancies are filled by educators who do not meet Arizona’s state standard certification requirements.

Justin Wing, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources with ASPAA, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss what these vacancies mean for the schooling system and how we can best fill them.

“We began doing this shortly after the recession year, so about 2015,” Wing said. “I hate to say it, but the data has been stagnant, and that’s not a good thing.”

There has been a teacher shortage for nine straight years. Wing believes this is because people do not want to become teachers.

“I think the opportunity for high school graduates are plenty,” Wing said. “I’ve shared before that as a student, you are interviewing the school environment and the workload and the working condition as a teacher, and you’re not seeing that as appealing as it maybe once was. So you’re choosing a different avenue for a career.”

The alternate pathway to attracting more teachers is allowing educators without Arizona certification to become teachers. This act permitted more teachers to be hired who otherwise would have been prevented from pursuing teaching in Arizona.

“The state legislature this year chose not to fund the Arizona Teacher Academy grant,” Wing said. “It provided some scholarships and grant opportunities for individuals, whether high school graduates or just-changed careers, to get a teaching degree with little to no student debt. That has really helped keep a status quo rather than get worse.”

Furthermore, Wing said Arizona is in the bottom five in terms of salary among the other 49 states.