Where — and why — South Jersey schools aren't filling open roles ahead new year (2023)

The first day of school is fast approaching for most South Jersey schools, but many districts still face heavy staffing shortages.

There were more than 5,000 education job openings across the state as of the end of August, according to data from NJ School Jobs. This includes teachers, secretaries, custodians, administrators and other staff positions.

Across South Jersey, there were 741, with Camden (235), Burlington (176) and Gloucester (114) counties seeing the greatest number of open positions. Atlantic, Cumberland, Cape May and Salem account for 216 positions combined.

At the district level, Penns Grove-Carney’s Point had the most open positions at 26, followed by Washington Township and Lindenwold tied at 19. The rest of the top 10 in descending order were Paulsboro, Glassboro, Hamilton Township (Atlantic), Willingboro, Millville, Salem County Vocational and Special Services and Camden City.

More:Camden County program offers financial relief to NJ caregivers

More:How South Jersey families are dealing with back to school expenses, where to get free supplies

According to its founder, Todd Lawrence, NJ School Jobs advertises for about two-thirds of public schools in the state as well as private schools, daycare centers and other employers in the education system. As such, these data do not include all open positions, but they do reflect overall staffing struggles, he said.

Across the state, the largest number of openings are for special education, at about 600, followed by math and science with 200 and nearly 300, respectively, said Lawrence. World language positions are also difficult to fill, he said. There are about 160 world language openings, 128 of which are for Spanish.

Even the typically easier to fill subject of physical education is “in dire need” of candidates, he said. He’s also seen an increase in demand like never before for other special topic positions such as art and music.

For example, small elementary schools often only have one or two art teachers, he said. As such, those positions usually stay filled by the same person for many years, if not decades. Now, however, those positions are opening much more frequently. What’s more is that there are fewer overall candidates applying for those positions. In the past, hundreds of people might apply for an art teacher spot; now there may be only a couple dozen.

Alongside these new demand increases, there’s also the ever-present demand for math, science and special education teachers, he said.

As for non-teacher positions, there are almost 300 paraprofessional openings, about 170 bus driver openings and 150 nurse openings.

“It’s not normal to have these many openings,”said Lawrence, who taught health and PE in the Egg Harbor School District for 29 years.

It’s always been cyclical, he said. During the spring, districts recruited as new teachers finished school. Then over the summer, there would be some departures and last-minute retirements, creating some eleventh-hour openings before the first day of school. Come the fall, most districts would be fully staffed, with parental and medical leaves causing the occasional opening throughout the year. The cycle would then repeat from there, he said.

But now it appears that there aren’t just more openings but that those openings are getting harder to fill, he said.

“Those openings that occurred in the springtime due to retirements and whatnot, they may still be ongoing because of a lack of candidates to fill them,” he said.

There are myriad factors contributing tomore open positions and fewer applicants — pay, politics, the pandemic and the teacher pipeline, to name a few.

Lower salaries and more expensive health insurance

Poor compensation and benefits play a major role in recruiting and retaining both teachers and support staff.

“It used to be, you might not have made a larger salary, but you had really good benefits when you retired,” said Lawrence. The same went for active teachers and health insurance. That changed in 2011 with the implementation of pension and health insurance reforms which saw teachers take on more costs than before.

“If degraded benefits are not replaced with better wages, young, well-qualified job aspirants will have even less incentive to become teachers,” wrote education policy analyst Mark Weber in a report for New Jersey Policy Perspective.

Teachers alsoface the “teacher pay penalty,” or the difference in weekly earnings as compared to workers in similar occupations, according to a report by the Education Policy Institute. As of 2019, teachers earned 19.2% less than other college graduates.

The same report also pointed to pay as a reason schools are struggling to fill support staff roles. Custodians and teaching assistants, for example, take home $575 and $500 per week, respectively. The average worker takes home nearly $800 per week. In addition to lower wages,bus drivers and food service workers also contend with fewer hours per week, averaging about 30.

“The combination of low pay and limited hours makes these front-line jobs less attractive to return to — or apply to,” read the report. “Part-time earnings at low hourly rates may simply not be viable for many would-be staffers in these roles.”

More:Who starts No. 1? South Jersey high school football preseason Mean 15 Rankings

Masks, curriculum and politics in education

The hostile politicization of education is another factor dissuading potential teachers from joining the profession. In the past two years, teachers have been put in the middle of political debates around everything from masks to racial justice and sex education curricula.

“We’ve been injected into the political sphere, when most teachers just want to teach,” said Lawrence.

Pandemic concerns for an older workforce

Support staff tend to skew older, which means they are more at risk for severe COVID outcomes.Two-thirds of bus drivers and more than half of custodians and food service workers in public schools are age 50 or older, according to the Education Policy Institute report. While the average New Jersey teacher isabout 43-years-old, about a third are 50 or older, per the National Center for Education Statistics.

Pandemic concerns, then, likely moved up the retirement timeline for many education workers, according to Lawrence. The transition to virtual work and learning environments as well as the health and safety risks may have been too much for people who might have otherwise worked a couple more years.

Bursts in the pipeline

For these reasons and others, fewer candidates are enrolling in and completing teacher training programs in New Jersey, according to Weber’s report.

The 2018-19 school year was the first time in two decades where the number of new teacher candidates was below 3,000, per the report. And, in 2020, New Jersey’s colleges and universities awarded a record low number of teaching degrees.

More:Self-described 'newspaper geek' named Burlco's Teacher of the Year

One reform that could broaden the pool of candidates would be to make it easier for out-of-state teachers to teach in New Jersey, said Lawrence. Currently, the New Jersey First Act requires all public employees to reside in the state, but this presents an issuefor candidates in more transient areas like South Jersey and Philadelphia, according to Lawrence. Allowing teachers in Pennsylvania and New York to fill open positions, while still holding them to the same standards as New Jersey teachers, might offer some reprieve from staffing struggles, he said.

A decline in new candidates is even reflected in families of teachers. In Lawrence’s family, many of whom are in the profession, there are seven grandchildren but not one intends to become a teacher.

“It’s not an easy profession,” said Lawrence. “You have to be everything to everyone.”