Manteca Schools Struggling To Find Teachers To Fill Gaps After Recession Layoffs
MANTECA (CBS13) — A statewide teacher shortage has schools scrambling to fill positions, and one local district is even looking out of state for educators.
The Manteca Unified School District says it could have a crisis on its hands next year if it can't find more certified teachers. The problems come after the district laid off 125 teachers during the recession.
Science class at Sierra High School is becoming more high-tech. This is a project in Steve Unterholzener's class in the first month back to school.
"Microcontroller with a bunch of sensors on it and we launch it up in a rocket and we can get it up to ten thousand feet and it takes readings of the atmosphere," he said.
But teachers like him are hard to get into Manteca classrooms. The district has 28 teacher openings and struggles with attracting math and science teachers. This year, it also has an unusual shortage of multi-subject teachers in kindergarten through sixth grade.
"We're sucking our substitute teacher pool dry for those positions," said Superintendent Jason Messer.
And that's only a temporary fix, since state law restricts how long they can teach.
"We'll limit the number of teachers we'll allow to go to conferences, we'll limit the number of teachers we allow to go to district-wide training," he said.
The district is already marketing to student teachers and Messer says it will recruit out-of-state teachers.
"We're talking to teachers before they even graduate from college," he said.
It's an experiment the district hopes will pay off with more long-term teachers.