Alaska’s schools have a hard time attracting and retaining teachers. That was the case even before the pandemic hit and upended education worldwide.
But the pandemic certainly hasn’t helped. And strains on staff from burnout and absenteeism are piling on the stress for a system already under pressure.
Teacher retention is the number one priority for Nathan Erfurth. He’s president of the teachers' association in the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District.
"As far as this particular issue is concerned, this has always been an elephant in the room," he said. "But the lights were off. We were not looking around in the corners of the room. COVID flipped on the fluorescents and we can see everything right now. Even if we manage to turn those lights off, we’re all going to know that it’s over there and we still have to deal with it.”
Teachers everywhere, he said, are burnt out. Many are facing ire from parents as heated debates about COVID protocols and school curriculum catch on locally.
Erfurth knows of about 18 teachers planning to leave the Kenai district this year, though he said many more are waiting until contracts come out next month before deciding whether to leave or stay.
But burnout is just one factor contributing to Alaska's teacher retention problem. Another is that life in Alaska is expensive. Affordable housing and daycare have become harder to come by during the pandemic.
“At the beginning of the year, I was talking to one of our local landlords. And he was telling me that his inventory — he had zero available units," Erfurth said. And we were trying to hire, at that time, 25 different teaching positions across the school district. So we were really trying to figure out, ‘Who’s got an extra bedroom where they can stash a new teacher until housing opens up?’”
Superintendent Clayton Holland said at this month's KPBSD school board meeting that he was working with Seward to create more housing there, since it’s been hard for school staff and administrators to find places to live.
Meanwhile, schools say the funding they have to support teachers from the State of Alaska is not enough.
"We used to be sort of the model in the country for teacher recruitment and retention and compensation," said Tom Klaameyer, president of Alaska’s branch of the National Education Association. The association represents over 12,000 members across the state.
"And we’ve lost a lot of ground there with flat funding for the last decade, approximately," he said.
The state's retirement system is also a culprit for pushing teachers away, a state education task force found last year. In 2006, the state got rid of its pension system. Klaameyer said without a good retirement system, Alaska has an “educational tourists” problem: Teachers come to the state for adventure, stay in their districts for four to five years and then leave.
Research shows that higher turnover is associated with lower outcomes for students and higher costs for districts. Klaameyer said the rate of turnover for Alaska’s rural districts is up from the statewide numbers.
“It’s a special person that wants to come to Alaska and live here, especially the further you get from the road system," he said. "And so that’s always been a challenge, and it’s an even greater one now."
Nationally, fewer young people are choosing to become teachers and fill those gaps. The pandemic is turning turned many away from the profession.
“Even if you did manage to keep everybody who’s in the profession right now, fewer and fewer and fewer people are going off to college to become a teacher and join this profession," Erfurth said. "Because they’re seeing what we’re going through and it’s not attractive.”
KPBSD has a local chapter of Educators Rising, a program that works with students who are interested in pursuing careers in education. The district also has a campaign at the Anchorage airport to advertise to teachers who might want to come to the Kenai Peninsula to teach.
Support staff — including positions like special education aides — are contending with shortages, too.
Susanna Litwiniak leads the district’s support staff association. She said her members are struggling to keep up.
"What it looks like is the custodian greeting the kids in the morning and making sure that they’re keeping a six-foot distance because there aren't enough teachers to do that. And then it looks like the custodian helping in the lunch room because the lunch room is short staffed," she said.
There are almost 25 open support staff positions open in the district today, plus eight open nurse postions. The district upped its pay for school nurses last year and changed its requirements for substitute teachers to attract more amid shortages.
Despite the challenges, Litwiniak said people stick around because they enjoy what they do.
“People who work in education, work in education because they love working in education. They love working with kids, they love schools," she said. "And so they’re staying because they love their work.”
She said it’s just important that their schools love them back.
