Spotsylvania has a relatively low teacher vacancy rate, but top-line number doesn’t tell the whole story.
by Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
Were it not using interim teachers to fill vacant teaching positions, Spotsylvania County Public Schools would have a 5.9% teacher vacancy rate, human resources director Amy Williams told the School Board on Monday.
Instead, the division reported a 3% teacher vacancy rate this school year, according to data made available by the Virginia Department of Education. A vacancy rate of 5.9% would be the second highest vacancy rate of the five school divisions in Planning District 16 (Fredericksburg, Stafford, Spotsylvania, Caroline and King George).
In June and July, the School Board approved converting up to 60 full-time teaching positions to positions that can be filled by interim teachers. The interim teachers must have at minimum an associate degree or at least 60 college credits, be actively enrolled in an educator preparation program, and have one year of “successful” experience working with students and a favorable reference.
The division employed 49 interim teachers at the beginning of this school year, Williams said.
Last school year, the division employed 14 interim teachers. Thirteen have returned this year and four have now met the requirements for full licensure.
Interim teachers employed this year have “mentor support” as well as support from “veteran teachers,” such as retired teachers or those who choose to work-part time, as requested by themselves or their supervisors, Williams said.
The interim teacher program is part of the division’s attempts to fill the teacher pipeline in “non-traditional” ways—outside of pulling from graduates of traditional educator preparation programs.
Williams said these programs are only prepared to fill 2,600 of the 4,000 vacant teaching positions statewide.
Currently, 16% of teachers statewide—and 11% in Spotsylvania as of November—are either provisionally licensed or are fully licensed but are teaching out of their endorsement area to fill a vacancy, Williams said.
According to the VDOE, special education is an area of critical shortage where vacancies are hard to fill.
Spotsylvania has 35 special education teachers with a provisional license, Williams said. The VDOE issues non-renewable provisional licenses that are valid for three years to educators who are employed with a school division.
This month, Spotsylvania launched a partnership with Regent University, a private, Christian university based in Virginia Beach, that is aimed at helping the 35 provisionally licensed special education teachers attain full licensure.
The division is covering half the cost of enrolling in Regent’s online, 30-credit-hour master’s degree course in special education. Regent has also agreed to provide on-site mentors to teachers enrolled in the program, Williams said.
Regent offers higher education opportunities to a number of public and private schools, businesses and churches that it partners with across the state. Other public-school divisions that are partnered with Regent, according to its website, include Accomack, Charles City County, Culpeper, Chesapeake, Essex County, Hampton City, Lancaster County, Manassas City, Newport News, Norfolk, Northampton County, Page County, Petersburg City, Portsmouth City, Prince George’s County, Prince William County, Suffolk, Virginia Beach, Waynesboro, Williamsburg-James City County and York County.
Also as part of her presentation on Monday, Williams provided the number and percent of educators who left the division over the past three years. In the 2020-21 school year, 263 employees—or 16%—left.
That number increased to 384, or 23%, in 2021-22. Last school year, 317 employees—20%—left the division.
The primary reasons given for leaving, Williams said, were family/personal (26%), relocation (17%), employment in another school division (16%) and retirement (12%).
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Informative, thanks.
2 questions/comments.
The reasons for leaving in Spotsy add up to 71%. I wonder what the other 29% covered?
How do the percentages for people leaving in Spotsy compare with the other 4 districts in the region?