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QUESTION

What are the hiring needs among different school levels and how do they impact Advanced Placement (AP) classes and specific certifications?

1:01:22

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3 min

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First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg acknowledges teacher shortages, especially in STEM and special education, and discusses the challenges of maintaining AP classes and certifications across various school levels.

National shortages are particularly acute at the secondary level in STEM subjects, making it challenging to fill high school science vacancies.
The requirement for smaller class sizes necessitates finding additional teachers, which is difficult due to fewer applications and the specificity of certifications needed.
Concerns include the potential redistribution of qualified teachers from areas with high poverty to other districts, impacting equity.
The Department of Education faces implementation challenges to ensure that smaller class sizes do not lead to compromises in quality or accessibility of education.

Linda Lee

1:01:22

And just on another related topic, which was my second part of the question around the workforce also is, has there been a breakdown in terms of the needs of hiring for elementary versus middle school versus high school.

1:01:36

And the reason why I say that is because obviously for High school, for example, you may need teachers that have other special certifications, different types of AP classes, different types of so So I guess my question then is for those teachers, because I've been going to a bunch of legislative breakfast with the high school principles as well as the parents and the CECs and talking to just a bunch of folks about this.

1:02:00

And I guess one of the concerns that has been brought up to me, and if you speak to maybe some of the challenges around, if a school has, let's just say, 2, like, 1 AP class that now has to be If they wanna offer that same class to the same number of students, they have to now split it into 2, but that means that they would have to find another instructor for that class.

1:02:20

Right?

1:02:21

What happens to those students if an instructor is not there?

1:02:23

And then does that mean that, you know, those students could take different types of classes or different offerings.

1:02:30

And and also speaking to the equity piece, I wanna make sure that we also recognize that the schools that need it the most shouldn't have that sacrificed, right, for in terms of equity.

1:02:42

So we should make sure that whether no matter what the socioeconomic status is, you know, the needs are really, especially on the lower, you know, the more the schools that in in the areas that have higher poverty, like, we should make sure that those teachers that are qualified don't get pulled.

1:02:57

Right?

1:02:59

To to go to other areas.

1:03:00

And so I'm just trying to wonder, like, it's like a puzzle piece that you have to figure out.

1:03:04

So I'm just wondering what some of the challenges are around that.

Dan Weisberg

1:03:07

There there's there's a lot embedded in that question council member Lee, and so we'd love to sit down with you because that's great that you've been spending time with our high school prints polls.

1:03:15

And yes, they're they're among the groups that have questions, you know, about implementation of of this law.

1:03:20

So I'll just say a a couple of things.

1:03:23

They are, of course, 100% correct that there are national shortages at the secondary level particularly in STEM subjects.

1:03:31

So it is very difficult.

1:03:33

We get proportionally much fewer applications, many fewer applications for, say, a high school science vacancy as we do for an elementary vacancy.

1:03:43

And we can see that.

1:03:44

Like, it's much harder to fill those slots.

1:03:46

So, yes, if we have an AP bio class, and now and there's, you know, 32 kids in it, and now we're gonna have to have 2 classes, We need to find another AP another bio high school biology licensed teacher.

1:04:02

Very difficult to find, and as My colleague, Doctor Kirkland, said, we have a major, you know, concern about what's gonna happen is maybe another part of the city will go to Brownsville and try to recruit some of Doctor Kirkland's AP teachers and bring them to another part of the city where maybe they're looking to go to anyway.

1:04:24

So we have we have to make sure that doesn't happen.

1:04:28

But but yes, there are national shortages that are going to be exacerbated.

1:04:32

Same as true as special education.

1:04:34

We have increased the number of special education teachers in our city tremendously over the last 10 years, it's still not enough.

1:04:43

There's a national short if you have an ICT class, so a team teaching class that includes students with IEPs and students with that.

1:04:51

And now it's over the cap.

1:04:52

You're gonna have to find another general education teacher and another special education teacher.

1:04:57

So these are just the implementation challenges that we will have to overcome.

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How are teacher recruitment and hiring being addressed, and what incentive programs are in place?

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Rita C. Joseph on teacher shortages and class size issues in New York City public schools