SUFFOLK, Va. (WAVY) – Suffolk Public Schools is looking to the future and taking a proactive approach to combat the national teacher shortage.
Administrators are promising some high school graduates teaching jobs in the school division after they earn their college degrees.
“I’m out there feeling like I’m Oprah Winfrey or something,” said Suffolk Superintendent Dr. John Gordon. “You’ve got a job! You’ve got a job! You’ve got a job!”
“I was shocked, I was surprised,” said Nyla Parker. “But I was so happy.”
Parker, a graduate of King’s Fork High School, is one of nearly three-dozen students offered a letter of intent to come back and teach at Suffolk Public Schools.
“I love, love, love art,” said Parker. “I love expressing myself, and it’s the thing that comes most natural to me.”
So naturally, Parker wants to be an art teacher and teach high school students, just like King’s Fork art teacher Sarah Rhodes.
“What I realized is a lot of people need like a teacher that they can come to that they’re comfortable with, and I want to be that teacher for somebody,” Parker said. “She was that teacher for me.”
Gordon said this is the second year in a row they’ve done this.
Last year, they handed out 17 letters of intent, and some students have continued to keep in touch and are already substitute teaching with the school division.
Gordon said it’s tough to find teachers, so he hopes this will help put a dent in the teacher shortage.
“We’ve got to be innovative,” Gordon said. “Numbers are down for college students majoring in education in the undergraduate and graduate level, so what can we do to get that interest up?”
Gordon said some school divisions are offering signing bonuses to help recruit teachers, but this is more of a long-term solution.
“A large portion of our teachers all came in at the same time,” Gordon said, “so the downside is a lot of our teachers also retire at the same time, so if its 31 vacancies or 17, like I mentioned last year, we know were going to have positions open for them.”
Not only is it taking the burden off of students, but off their families, too.
“They know that I can come back to where I live, I can come back to the city of Suffolk and Suffolk Public Schools and I’ll already have a job waiting for me,” Gordon said.
“It makes it like official,” Parker said. “There’s no excuse now, like I’m set, so I just have to do it.”
Suffolk Public Schools has a virtual job fair coming up from 2 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, June 28.
The board just approved adding 62 teacher’s assistants, with the overall goal of the assistants taking some of the duties off of current instructional staff.
“Our teacher’s assistants not only will they work in the small groups of kids who need extra support,” Gordon said, “but they’re also going to take care of bus duty, after-school duty and recess and cafeteria duty, freeing up more time for our teachers to be in our professional learning communities, department meetings and also giving them a greater amount of time to be able to contact parents and meet with students.”
Gordon said they hope this will also help with recruitment and retention for staff, knowing they have additional help in the classroom.