Today is Sunday, August 13, 2023. Today I thought I’d give writing about the Orange Hemorrhoid and his legal troubles a break and just write about what Elliot and I did this warm, humid day. We drove to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to have brunch at our favorite haunt, Juliette. Then we browsed two bookstores and drove to McCarren Park where we sat in the shade and admired the parade of mostly young men and women strolling by. There were many dogs being walked in the park as well.

I left Elliot for a half hour or so to get coffee at a Dunkin’ Donuts and to talk to my son in Sarasota, Florida, and when I came back, Elliot had a remarkable story to tell. It seemed that Elliot spoke to two sisters from Ohio who originally went to a private school in Weston, Massachusetts, the same school where Elliot’s daughter still teaches, and where the sisters actually recalled having “Jill” as their teacher some years back. Talk about serendipity! What were the chances of meeting two former students of your daughter in Massachusetts at a park in Williamsburg, Brooklyn? I would dare say those chances were minuscule, almost nonexistent, practically, but here we have the encounter between Elliot and these two sisters being duly noted in McCarren Park on this particular day in August.

Since the end of summer, unfortunately, is upon us, the prospect of beginning another school year is also on the horizon. An online article in NBC Politics focuses on the signs of a teacher shortage arising from the pandemic and the ugliness of culture wars as practiced in some red hat states that has led to many teacher vacancies. The article is written by Shannon Pettypiece and it’s entitled “From ‘crisis’ to ‘catastrophe,’ schools scramble once again to find teachers.”

One of the people examined in the article is Vance Varner, the superintendent of schools in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, a rural community 30 minutes from the Penn State campus, who is desperately searching for teachers and staff members: an English instructor, a special education teacher, and a speech therapist.

Varner indicates that four of his teacher positions are still vacant less than a month before the start of school. Because of some positions getting zero applications, Varner said he is preparing to fill some of the vacancies with people who have no teaching experience or training, which he rarely had to do a decade ago.

The education official said, “There’s a perfect storm in education right now, especially in rural communities such as ours.”

“As millions of students get ready to head back to the classroom, school districts are once again scrambling to fill jobs as teacher shortages aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic show little signs of improving for yet another school year, according to interviews with more than a dozen academic researchers, teachers and administrators in rural, suburban and urban school districts.”

Teachers are not just trying to help students catch up from pandemic learning losses – many are also at the center of a pitched culture war as politicians accuse them of trying to indoctrinate children and turn their syllabuses into campaign fodder.

Mark Klaisner, the president of the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools, said, “At first it was a teacher shortage. Then it was a teacher shortage crisis. Then it was a teacher shortage catastrophe, and it just escalates.”

To deal with the staffing shortfalls, administrators say they are relying again on long-term substitute teachers, hiring emergency certified teachers with no teaching qualifications or experience, bringing in teachers from overseas, and increasing class sizes. So this means yet another year when many students won’t be able to get the support they need as standardized tests show kids falling behind in key areas, educators said.

One teacher accurately noted the problems with the teaching profession circa 2023 in a very divided nation. Her name is Trina Berg and she teaches earth and space science in the Phoenix suburb of Peoria. She indicated, “We’re under attack, unfortunately, by different parent groups and different political groups. And then everything kind of just builds up on you.”

The superintendent of Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, Vance Varner, pointed out that five years ago in Mifflin County, his district would get 15 to 30 applications for an opening. Now it’s a victory if he gets only five. One of his biggest hurdles to recruiting, he said, is the district’s relatively low salary: about $46,000 for a new teacher. Another reason for the teaching shortage, he said, is the number of new teachers overall. Applications for teaching licenses in Pennsylvania have fallen by 67 percent since 2010.

To address the teaching shortage, the state has been issuing more emergency teacher certifications, which allow people with no teaching experience or training to be able to work as full-time teachers. Now the state is issuing more emergency teaching permits than full teaching certificates to new college graduates.

Joseph Torres, the dean of students at George Washington Elementary School, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said his school will most likely have to start the year again with at least one long-term substitute teacher in a classroom. He notes the actual segment of the population that is suffering because of this situation, when he says, “I don’t want to say our kids are hurting, but that is the fact: Kids are hurting. They are suffering.”

To fill in the staffing holes last year, Torres said, he and his colleagues frequently juggled multiple roles. As he indicated, “I’ve had to be the secretary, cover the door; I’ve had to step in at lunches and recess. I have packed lunches, served lunches, breakfasts.” He acknowledges, “It’s all hands on deck.”

Another strategy being used to address these teaching shortages is recruiting teachers from overseas. For example, in the Phoenix suburb of Maricopa, about 1 in 4 teaching positions will be filled this year by teachers recruited from overseas, many of them coming from the Philippines, said Tom Beckett, Maricopa’s assistant superintendent of human resources.

So if I were a parent with a school-age child, I would be very alarmed by the situation detailed in this article. I would be aghast that an inexperienced person might be teaching my son or daughter. The article doesn’t really state any remedies for this teaching catastrophe. I could state an obvious one: the state must get out of the teaching profession and allow teachers to be teachers. The cultural war aspect of teaching in the last few years has led to the wholesale abandonment of the profession, in my opinion. And the woeful salary levels don’t help either. Teachers must be paid a living wage. This has always been true down the ages, and it’s certainly still true in 2023. Even more so with the cost of living being so high. Teacher burnout today is a very sad reality and it’s not being addressed most adequately. The situation in Florida is especially untenable for teachers, and I wonder what the data show with regard to teachers leaving the profession. The numbers must be staggering. Unless I’m mistaken, but I don’t think the governor would want you to know those figures since it makes him look bad.

Well, as you ruminate over the unsettling details of this last article, I bid you a peaceful week.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I saw several young groups of four players playing pickleball in the park. Maybe that’s a good sign for me since I have yet to book a pickleball session at Queens College Tennis Center this month. I will call the center tomorrow if I can.

Stay safe and be well.