Teacher Shortage Looms As School Year Begins At Broken Arrow High

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Many students are back in the classroom, while others will return to school in the coming days.

Some school districts are struggling to find math teachers ahead of the new year.

Administrators said they'll start the new school year Wednesday with two math teacher jobs unfilled, and there's cause for concern if the problem continues.

Broken Arrow High School students are spending the last day of summer break walking the hallways and getting familiar with where their classrooms will be this year.

Meanwhile, administrators are planning to start the year with more than 20 teaching positions that went unfilled.

Almost all of the unfilled positions are in special education, an area where many districts have struggled to find candidates. But there's now a shortage in candidates for other departments.

"Right now there definitely is a slice of teachers that we can't fill as easily, and that's the math department," Caleb Starr with Broken Arrow Schools said.

Starr is an assistant principal at the high school. He said some teachers are finding new jobs or moving to a new area with family.

"We leave the end of the year feeling good. And then during the summer, we have a couple vacancies pop up. So the later those happen, the harder they are to fill, and that's what Broken Arrow is running into this year," Starr explained.

Broken Arrow isn't alone. Over at Union, the district said it's been a struggle to hire math and science teachers for the new year.

Starr said more teachers are retiring, but the problem is there aren't as many graduating college to replace them.

"Class sizes have crept up over the past 10 to 15 years in education. That has a lot to do with our state funding formula. Fortunately, teachers got a raise this year. But we could still use more money to purchase more teachers, so to speak," Starr said.

The district said it offers graduating students a job early, and can even give them a signing bonus as an incentive to become a Tiger.

The district said some teachers are giving up their planning period this year to teach sections of math left by the vacancies. Those teachers will receive extra compensation.