LANSING − Keturah Bouyer homeschooled her four children as she finished a degree in ministry leadership at Cornerstone University.
But she always loved teaching. She started college as a history major and said she would have loved to teach the subject. With her degree in ministry in hand, her children moved to the Lansing School District’s Dwight Rich School of the Arts. Bouyer became a familiar face at the school as she often came in to help the teachers and volunteer where she could.
A secretary at the school noticed and asked if she had a bachelor’s degree. When Bouyer told her she did, the secretary suggested she use it to become a substitute teacher at the school.
“I absolutely love education and, more importantly, I love encouraging and impacting, at least for me, the students,” she said. “Impacting them and showing them maybe at times something different than what they see in society, maybe what they see in their own community and maybe different from what they see at home.”
Bouyer earned her teaching certificate while substitute teaching, applied for a full-time job and when school starts on Aug. 29, she will begin her fourth year as a teacher at Dwight Rich.
As recently as a decade ago, Bouyer’s road to teaching would have been considered unusual. As districts enter a third school year impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, her path is an example of the creative methods schools across Michigan and the U.S. are using as they struggle to hire and retain teachers.
With the 2022-23 school year underway – Holt Public Schools started classes Monday – and classes expected to begin at most other districts by Labor Day, there were more than 90 job postings for teachers at Greater Lansing school districts. That includes 45 positions in Lansing, a dozen in Okemos, nine in Waverly and six in Holt. It doesn’t include dozens of specialists, non-educational staff and paraprofessionals.
About 44% of public schools throughout the country were reporting full-time or part-time teaching vacancies, according to data released in March by the National Center for Education Statistics.
Teachers are leaving the profession short of retirement at the same time fewer students in Michigan are going to college to study education and train to become teachers, said Shanna Spickard, DeWitt Public Schools superintendent.
“We are still short one teacher and several paraprofessionals. It is a real struggle and a systemic issue,” Spickard said in an email. “In addition, I am afraid that the lack of appreciation for teachers and public education in general, combined with the amount of work, expertise, and skill that is involved in the art of teaching is also a factor in the shortage. Even though DeWitt and other districts are amazing places to teach and learn, certified teachers have started to look at other fields and professions.”
As of Thursday, the Lansing School District was looking to hire about 45 teachers, not including dozens of other specialists and non-teaching staff.
But officials say they are making progress. Lansing School District Superintendent Benjamin Shuldiner said his school district had hired more than 120 people in the last three weeks, including teachers and other educators and staff.
The school district has implemented several measures aimed at making a Lansing teaching job more attractive, including offering $1,000 stipends per semester for the upcoming school year and increasing the salary schedule for teachers by 0.5%.
Shuldiner said it’s too early to tell whether the district will be able to fill those remaining 45 teaching vacancies before school starts, but said Lansing schools that find themselves short of teachers come the first day of school will have to make adjustments, filling some positions with substitutes or shuffling educators to cover classrooms that don’t have a teacher.
“We have many different educators in multiple types of roles in the district. Depending on enrollment at each school, and the individual school need, we will be ready to have every child have a great educator to help support their learning,” Shuldiner said in a statement.
Potterville Public Schools is short a science teacher to start the school year on Monday, said Superintendent Kevin Robydek.
He credits a strategy that includes a new salary schedule and hiring bonuses that have allowed his district to largely skirt the teacher shortage.
In some instances school districts have hired teachers like Bouyer who have bachelor’s degrees but not in education and have helped them earn their teacher certification.
But a variety of pressures are driving educators out of the profession. The teaching profession has become especially scrutinized and politicized in recent years and the COVID-19 pandemic has meant teachers for the past two school years have dealt with remote learning, learning loss and social and emotional health concerns for students and staff.
Some teachers are leaving schools for others with just as dire teacher shortages.
Emily Stivers, a Haslett Public Schools parent and an Ingham County commissioner, received an email on Tuesday, almost exactly a week before school starts, alerting her that her son’s first-grade teacher had accepted a job at another school district.
The teacher’s departure means a substitute will be in place to start the school year as the district looks to hire a new teacher to lead Stivers’ son’s classroom, she said. It’s an especially big concern for Stiver because her son has special needs and the school district assured her toward the end of the last school year that he would be placed in a classroom with a teacher that would be especially accommodating.
“I am extremely worried and anxious for my son,” Stivers said. “I was confident that the teacher we got was the best teacher for him. Now, we’re going to start the year with a sub.”
She doesn’t blame the teacher, who accepted a job at another elementary school in the Lansing area that also was in dire need of teachers. The teacher is highly qualified to help fill a role there.
Stivers’ main concern lies with the school’s ability to find her replacement.
“I trust the school system and I trust the principal, that they are trying to find the best possible replacement,” Stivers said. “What scares me is that there aren’t enough teachers out there.”
Finding qualified teachers to teach specialized courses, such as special education and math, is even more of a challenge. Charlotte Public Schools, Ovid-Elsie Area Schools, Eaton Rapids Public Schools and Haslett Public Schools are among the school districts with special education teacher vacancies.
St. Johns Public Schools has two challenging positions to fill, including an elementary school music teacher and a high school alternative education teacher with a special education endorsement.
“Both of which will be a challenge to find,” said Superintendent Mark Palmer.
East Lansing Public Schools had one teaching vacancy as of Thursday, with another teacher considering leaving, said Chief Human Resources Officer Rulesha Glover-Payne.
“We’re in a good spot,” she said. “I know that there are some districts that are really struggling.”
So what has worked? Competitive wages and competitive wage increases that were included in the teachers’ last collective bargaining agreement, Glover-Payne said.
East Lansing Public Schools offers a starting salary of $43,468 for teachers who hold a bachelor’s degree. The Lansing School District offers teachers with no experience a $40,907 starting salary.
But it’s not all about the money. Teachers who come to East Lansing Public Schools know they are joining a staff of passionate, collaborative teachers and have a compassionate leader in Superintendent Dori Leyko, who listens to the needs of the staff, according to Glover-Payne.
Charlotte Public Schools, which had four open positions as of Thursday, according to Superintendent Mandy Stewart, began offering signing and retention bonuses last year of up to $6,500 for teachers who stay through 2023.
The state legislature has also been making decisions that have helped the teaching shortage in Michigan improve, said Michigan Education Association spokesperson Thomas Morgan. Like the recent signing of a record $22.2 billion state education budget, which will provide schools with the most funding they’ve ever received, he said.
Under the bill, all school districts will see their per-student foundation allowance increase to $9,150, up about 5.2% from the $8,700 per-pupil amounts that districts received this past school year.
About $2.5 billion in federal funding is built into the education bill, with much of it coming in the form of one-time COVID-19 relief funding.
With the funding flowing into their schools, administrators now must use it to increase compensation both for veteran teachers and newly hired educators, Morgan said.
Legislators must also make it a priority to listen to the voices of educators when crafting education legislation.
“Too often we see politicians coming together to make policy without asking people who actually work in the schools,” Morgan said.
At the Michigan State University College of Education, enrollment has been stable, from 3,042 students in the fall 2020 to 3,045 last fall, but is still well below the 4,138 students enrolled in the college in 2012.
The MSU College of Education enrollment decline reflects a trend seen across Michigan’s public universities as fewer students are going to college overall as Michigan’s K-12 enrollment drops because of declining birth rates in the state. Over the past decade, Michigan’s 15 public universities have seen enrollment drop by 12.7% or 38,000 students.
To get more students enrolled, officials are trying to eliminate the barriers that prevent or make it harder for students to study education in college. At MSU, officials have looked at reducing the teacher education program from five years to four, a move that would save students thousands of dollars, while also making more scholarships and other forms of financial aid available.
Other programs, like MSU’s “Grow Your Own” initiative, partner with schools to find and train students who might be interested in becoming a teacher and potentially returning to their home school system after earning an education degree.
While schools wait for more college graduates to fill their teaching positions, they’re all competing for the few that are out there.
“We’re all competing for that same pool of people,” Glover-Payne said.
Schools very well could find more teachers by looking inside their own school buildings, where they could find future teachers like Bouyer.
For Bouyer, earning her teaching certificate meant two additional years of coursework and observation time in a classroom.
“At least the Lansing School District, they were willing to assist me in getting certified and finding a program that was conducive to my family,” she said. Fitting in her coursework was tough, while also juggling a teaching job and a busy family – including a husband who leads Kingdom Life Church in Lansing and coaches, as well as children who are involved in sports.
“I love being a constant presence,” she said. “Being able to have the opportunity to spend five-plus hours a day … with students and teaching them how to create the community they desire and creating a community that then can impact the neighborhood, that’s what keeps me in the classroom, having that consistent impact.”
Contact Mark Johnson at (517) 377-1026 or majohnson2@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ByMarkJohnson.
As of Thursday, here are the number of teachers that 15 mid-Michigan school districts are still hoping to hire:
Lansing School District: 45Holt Public Schools: At least 6Okemos Public Schools: 12East Lansing Public Schools: 1Mason Public Schools: 2DeWitt Public Schools: 1Waverly Community Schools: 9St. Johns Public Schools: 2Haslett Public Schools: 1Charlotte Public Schools: 4Eaton Rapids Public Schools: 4Williamston Community Schools: 0Ovid-Elsie Area Schools: 4Leslie Public Schools: 1Potterville Public Schools: 1
