Developing Leaders Notes Date: 12/6/17 Session Title: Problem-Solving Staff Shortages Focus Area:Program Evaluation

MAASE Focus Areas:

We will align and organize the strategic priorities and work of MAASE to focus on the following elements:

High Quality Student Evaluations

Specially Designed  Instruction

Skilled Staff

Program Evaluation

Through the platforms of:

Association Partnerships

Legislative Action and Advocacy

Professional Learning

Membership Services

 

EdCamp is an open format where group members share thoughts to help one another in implementation of "real life" practice. These notes reflect the thinking of someone in the group but do not represent an official position on behalf of MAASE. Anyone using this as a resource is encouraged to use their best judgement in interpreting the suggestions.

 

MAASE EdCamp Format:

 

1. Clarify the Problem of Practice to Solve

2. Collaborate around the Problem of Practice by offering suggestions and resources

3. Give feedback to the committee on how to improve next time

 

 

 

Notes:

 

This is a National Issue. National CEC is taking this on as a top priority issue. Laurie will be facilitating a conversation around the national shortage. 3 key issues, how do we recruit people into our college programs, how do we train them so they are highly effective and then once we hire them how to we retain them. In MI we have closed our DHH and VI programs and are now recruiting from out of state. At NASDSE this was also a topic of conversation. Our local Universities are also reaching (Grand Valley reached out about EI teachers) but how do we recruit teachers into the pre-service area?

 

1. High student loans, low starting pay.

2. Negative media coverage and politics.

3. Parents that are educators are encouraging their children to NOT go into education

 

• Within a district about 50% of the teachers that are working in a special education position do not hold a special education endorsement.

• In talking with the MDE they are looking into options of alternative tracks to getting a special education degree. Major concerns about missing the college of education process and what that will do for the quality and highly qualified teachers.

• Having the most at risk students with the lowest qualified people…

• We are not just having a staff shortages for teachers - we have a high need for ancillary staff as well

• How are we determining caseload numbers for social workers?

• Public representation (newspapers) stating that we do not actually have a teacher shortage but that schools are not paying for what teachers are actually worth

• Grand Rapids is looking into collaborating with high schools and universities to be able to partner to give credit towards their degree

• Position posting - 29 applicants. Applicants were unable to talk about specially designed instruction. When they called some applicants back to offer the position they did not want it because they were only offered Step 1

  • LINKS programs were a huge reason for why people are choosing the path of special education

• What type of mentorship program do we have set up in order to get high quality people within education. We are using temporary band aids to fix the problems.

• We are missing the knowledge, skills and abilities of our candidates - having a lot of people in positions with only a temporary approval

• Involuntary transfer - ie. PE teachers moved into a CI special education position just because they had the endorsement - pushed the teacher into early retirement

• What role do educators at the high school level have in guiding students in choosing education as a future profession - positive encouragement about education/teachers. Encouraging students to come back and work within their community

• Is the state looking into retirement

• How can we help MDE with the teacher approval process? Making it a top priority because it is a barrier

• New system that Arizona put into place - making it a preferred job. Doubled and tripled teacher salaries to make it enticing.

  • Some places are bumping up pay to $60,000+ but it does not include insurance.

  • Being an at will employee

• Concerns around salaries - paying student loans, retirement, etc.

• Working with our unions to help with this process? Contract says where we are allowed to start teachers off - ex. 15 years of experience but starting back at Step 1. This makes our hands tied…

  • What about when we have been in a pay freeze for a long time. How do you offer a new hire more money than what current teachers are making?

• Can we look into a small group of teachers more depending on their position? CI self-contained? EI self-contained?

• Reviewing districts transparency page to determine what pay range is

• At times, even if people are coming out with a degree they are NOT highly qualified within content knowledge

• There is a big concern with the turnover rate of teachers - ie. one classroom has had 4 teachers in the class so far this year. Parents are pulling students from the districts

• Trauma informed vs. PBIS

  • Conflicting information

• Fear of a “domino effect” - shortage of highly qualified teachers will turn into a lack of highly qualified administrators

• The power behind an effective mentorship program can help grow teachers/administrators

  • Having this supports makes people want to stay within districts

• Classrooms having non-certified teachers within classrooms

  • Long term subs being in positions for up to 120 days

• Loan forgiveness - working with feds to have a system in place that actually works

  • Starting at the federal level - state level - local level

  • Locals to offer loan forgiveness or tuition reimbursement for teachers who want to go back and further their education

• How do we keep our quality teachers in state?

• Michigan has certificate reciprocity issue with people coming in from other states

• Mentoring - turn our focus on tapping into programs that already exist that have really strong models instead of creating something from scratch. Utilizing people who have proven to be successful

  • Allows for more collaboration

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feedback:

• What made this time worth your while?

• What specifically can we do to make this better?