Now Hiring: San Diego Unified Aims To Fill Teacher Vacancies

You are listening to midday edition. Good afternoon I am Tom fudge and here are some of the stories we are following in the KPBS newsroom. San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulkner has appointed assistant chief Brian Hennessy to become the San Diego Fire Chief after the current chief retires in November. Chief Javier Mainer has led the department for six years. One person was killed and another was critically injured this morning when a small plane crashed in a fancy neighborhood and ended up in the driveway of a home. And the USS George Washington, one of the aircraft carriers taking part in a three-way swap of home ports, is scheduled to leave San Diego tomorrow for training and nuclear refueling took our top story on the day addition, schools across California are facing a shortage of teachers the state education department says California schools need to fill at least 21,000 teaching spots. In San Diego a slightly different story. Everyday job there was just help this week to recruit teachers for 40 open position's. But the district is still expecting to lose hundreds of teachers in the next couple of years to retirement. Spec joining me to talk about the teacher are Joe Johnson and acacia acacia is the director of human resources for San Diego unified school District. Thank you for coming and. Spec Joe Johnson is Dean of the SUE College of education. Spec Dean Johnson, why don't you characterize in your words how serious the teacher shortage is right now across California? Spec In 2004, there were over 3000 credentials for teachers issued by the state of California. This past year, that number was less than 1500. So we have over the past several years been credentialing many fewer teachers, but we are at a place where the demand is now going to be critical. So there are many districts throughout the state that are experiencing a shortage of teachers. Spec -- during the recession did a lot of teachers lose their jobs and move on to something else? Is that one of the reasons were facing a shortage? I think those factors influence the situation in that, when many school districts across the state were in a place where they were needed to lay off teachers, then bright talented young people were thinking about going into teaching were then thinking why should I. If there are not jobs. So there are still many young people past the perception that there aren't jobs available in teaching and so they are looking at other career choices. Akisha San Diego unified is not facing as big a problem or are they? Spec we have actually filled more than 450 position since we started our hiring here we are down to our last 40. But as a district, we have seen the differences. They are -- there are increased areas like special education, mathematics and science, that are traditionally hard to staff but even as Doctor Johnson said, there are reasons that encourage people not to go on in education because what happened economically in the past. There are list to choose from in those critical areas. Dean Johnson, would you expect that to turn around a bit? You talked about there being fewer teachers being credentialed right now as the market turns around. Should we see those numbers go up? Yes. But the question is will go up early enough. So there is a lot of reason to be concerned. One it to -- one issue is just to let tell to young people know that there are in fact jobs in education. Another issue however, is thinking about what would convince someone who is finishing a bachelors degree that may be thinking about a career in teaching, but that requires a fifth year of college. And so a lot of young people who are finishing a bachelors degree our thinking, wow, I have already accumulated quite a bit of date. Dad is saying go out and get a job. So the idea of pursuing a teaching credential is maybe a tough consideration for a lot of students. But you are saying to dad if we'll get a job next year after I'm credentialed as a teacher But as a system of public education throughout our state, it suggests that we ought to be looking at more systemic solutions. How do we entice students. How do we create situations where they are going to be excited about taking that this year -- taking that 5th and getting that credential. Spec Akisha, it is my understanding that as many as 1000 San Diego unified teachers can be eligible for retirement in the next year or two. Is that affect? Spec -- that is true. We have over thousand and are eligible to retire right now and more in the coming years. Our goal is to do some of the work and take a systemic approach. We spent the last year and half convened a task force to study what we as a district to do committing and partnering with San Diego State, community college districts to look at how do we approach this issue of a teacher shortage from a systemic standpoint. There are things that we can do. We currently have a system that as a sponsorship that has been in place a long time and San Diego unified our San Diego education and their commitment is to sponsoring students who want to enter teacher education programs they sponsor their schooling and they also sponsor their mentorship process throughout their educational program as they go through the process. Spec -- now do some of those retiring teachers become subs so they can contribute to the effort of educating kids? Yes. The retirement system has been changed that people can come back to work. There was a way to program. They can come back and we love our retirees because they bring a breath of experience to the work. But they are not in the permanent roles. So you really need to approach this nationwide issue of encouraging young people to go into education and become teachers. Joe, where gritting your shortly from someone who represents the teachers union and she may want to say something about this. Let me ask you to have any feeling that the teaching profession has lost some of his appeal? I know some people are concerned that teachers have to focus too much on test scores there so much criticism of teachers people feel are not doing a good job. What you have to say to that? I think it is so important for us to be thinking about what we can do to help ensure that teachers have a quality work experience that allows them to be a part of an effort that is going to change children's lives. And so creating that quality work environment includes a lot of things. Certainly salary is a part of that. Benefits are part of that work but also just the work environment and how we structure that environment so that educators really have an opportunity to work as professionals focused on the important challenging work of educating children. You are listening to midday edition I am Tom fudge. Joe is Dean of the San Diego State College of education. Akisha is a human relations director for San Diego unified school District. And now joining me by phone is Lindsay Burningham she's executive director of San Diego directors. Thank you for having me. I am president of the San Diego teacher Association. -- Education Association. Why do you think that a lot of young people are choosing not to go into teaching? Is it because of economic issues? Or issues of how much satisfaction they will get from the job? I think you guys have Artie cover a lot of it. The first problem was the recession and teachers were experiencing year after year of layoffs and there not being enough positions. That really turned many people a way that would been interested in the education profession going into the programs. I was one of those teachers over those 10 years was repeatedly laid off and not really knowing if I had a position next year. That was definitely one of the problems. And I think Dean Johnson just on another major part. That is ensuring that our teachers go into the profession, go into their schools, with the community and the public understanding the complexity of teaching. The importance of teachers having safe working environment. Importance of teachers having a voice in the decisions that are happening at their schools and classrooms. We often hear a lot of attacks from the public on teachers. I truly believe our educators come into this profession, as I did, for the students and to make a difference in their students lies and to absolutely -- students lies and absolutely encourage their life and encourage education. Making sure our educators, if we want to recruit and retain them in our district and school systems, they feel respect and are valued in a way that many other professionals are not. Lindsay I understand you are can earn teacher -- were there guard teacher for 11 years in San Diego. Why did you decide to become a teacher? It really was for the students. To make a difference in my students lies as I started teaching my first few years, it was amazing to see the growth and what my students could do on the first day of kindergarten until that last day when you're ready to go to first great work really that is -- the growth I saw none and the joy I saw in my students learning is what kept me there in the profession and I wanted to continue to see that. And Keisha has the Sanyo school district had to lay off a lot of teachers? I say this because I know they get pink slips but they will not actually be released. With Laos? -- There were layoffs the district was able to rescind those. There were also days and we had furlough days. San Diego is one of the first district to refer -- restore those days back. I worked in another district so I remember that vividly. As HR administrators we often talk and collaborate together and we learned that San Diego with such a large system restored their days before other smaller districts did that there. San Diego has a huge commitment to their staff and people are born snakebitten is not to do layoffs for the last two years. Before those two years you did reduce the size of your teaching force. Yes we did. Joe I guess it comes down to any and how does this end up, how do shortages of teachers and up affecting the education of kids? It is tremendous. Our state legislature, in essence, decided we could not as a state of war to provide our children the same quality of education to which we had been aborted. It is unconscious -- had been -- the had been aborted -- afforded. we're still the wealthiest in the world. We chose this action. There clearly is an impact when we lose teachers, we lose a lot of talented teachers. And our system is crippled as a result. The crippling is still happening after all of those cuts. So even though resources are being put back into education, currently, we still have a system that is suffering. And the teacher shortages are just one example of that there How do you think, Joe, we can make the teaching profession more attractive? For more talented people? Again I think, certainly, doing a great job of letting students know that this is a profession where there are jobs. But also letting them know this is a profession where they will have an opportunity to change children's lives. To change communities. To improve the future of their community. That's what is really so important. Beyond that, I think that we need to create systems where we have students know that if they become teachers, we have scholarships available. So they will not have to go further into debt. We have debt forgiveness programs where we have situations where loans may be forgiven because of the time spent in teaching in public schools. Those are always that we can help. We will have to leave it at that I'm afraid. I want to thank Keisha Katie. The director for human resources at San Diego unified. Thank you for coming in. Joe Johnson is the Dean of the San Diego State College of education. Thank you Joe. And thanks to Lindsay burning out who is the president of the San Diego education Association. Thanks to all of you. You are listening to the addition -- you are listening to midday edition.