(Radio Iowa) – Dozens of Iowa school districts will be starting classes soon without a full roster of full-time teachers and staff. This (Thursday) morning, the state’s “Teach Iowa” website shows public and private K-12 schools have nearly 38-hundred openings for all sorts of positions — coaches, cooks AND teachers. Professor Mark McDermott, associate dean of the University of Iowa’s College of Education, says it’s difficult to generalize and say the state is experiencing a “significant” teacher shortage. McDermott says, “Anytime that there’s a school district that is in need of hiring a particular teacher and hasn’t been able to fill a particular position, for that school and that school district, that is a teacher shortage.”

Iowa has more than half-a-million students enrolled in nearly 330 public districts and over 180 private schools. McDermott says administrators routinely contact him as fall approaches, checking to see if any recent U-I graduates are available to fill teaching positions. “Our job is to try to develop and create not only teachers that will get licensed, but teachers that will be retained in the field,” McDermott says. “We don’t know exactly where our students are going to go and where they’re going to end up teaching, but by doing that, we’re doing our part to help figure out ways to provide quality teachers for all students.”

While elementary school teachers are typically in the most plentiful supply, McDermott says there’s demand for teachers at all grade levels. “Right now, districts are really in need of some special ed teachers,” McDermott says. “Physics teachers are always challenging to find. A lot of school districts are looking for English Language Learner teachers, the ELL-endorsed teachers.” Every school district will handle its teacher shortage differently. McDermott says some will simply not be able to offer all of the courses they’d planned to offer this fall. “Some school districts are looking towards online programs to try to offer opportunities for their students, even if they’re not able to hire a teacher specifically for that area,” McDermott says. “Back when I was teaching high school, one of the things that would happen would be class sizes would increase.”

State education officials say there are more educators in Iowa classrooms today than ever before, with a 10 percent increase in the total number of teachers in the past 12 years.

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