The issues that dominated headlines during the last school year are still playing out in Metro Nashville Public Schools and beyond. Students and teachers are still getting COVID-19, teachers must now spend precious time cataloging classroom libraries due to state censorship laws, and schools are seeing an increased police presence in response to the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting in May. High pressure and low pay have led some teachers to leave the profession, which is exacerbating another issue — teacher shortages.
Teacher shortages are not unique to Nashville, but rather part of a nationwide crisis. MNPS currently has 128 full-time teacher vacancies, and the district is utilizing every option it has to attract more educators. According to an MNPS spokesperson, this includes partnering with local universities to recruit teachers, training existing Metro schools staff to become teachers through Tennessee’s Grow Your Own program, hiring college graduates who are not yet certified to teach but permitted to do so through temporary teaching licenses, and recruiting retired staff based on a new state law that allows them to return to work without losing their benefits. The district also has 320 support staff openings for both preexisting and new positions.
MNPS is also leaning on substitute teachers to pick up the slack, though McGavock High School teacher Susan Norwood tells the Scene there is “a woeful shortage of subs.” As such, qualified teachers can also pick up additional courses for the school year or substitute teach during their planning periods, for which they receive additional compensation. Additionally, if there aren’t enough subs, school administrators can fill in, and principals can also adjust school schedules to balance class sizes, though they must still adhere to state class-size requirements — those range from 25 to 35 students depending on the grade.
Norwood tells the Scene she’s had up to 38 students in one of her classes this year, though her roster changed a lot in the first couple weeks of school. Even though Norwood has picked up extra classes as a substitute, she’d “prefer to have the planning time. … You need that break to refresh, be able to think.” Norwood says teachers also need that time to tend to tasks like grading papers, calling parents and more.
When asked by the Scene if she feels pressure to take on extra classes, Norwood responds: “Think about it, if your boss calls you and says, ‘Can you sub third period?’ What are you going to say knowing that that’s the person who evaluates you? Yeah, and of course you want to help out … you know, be there for your school. But again, you also need your planning period.”
Norwood substituted for a class in the second week of the school year, and says her students told her they hadn’t yet done any work. She says that last year, one teacher had to miss a lot of school due to COVID-19, and “students were without a math teacher for a good portion of the year.”
Despite relaxed guidelines both inside and outside of schools, teacher vacancies are further compounded by COVID-19. During the week of Aug. 22-28, 110 staff members tested positive for COVID-19 while another 36 were reported as being in quarantine. (The district, which cites state law, no longer requires those who have been exposed to COVID to quarantine.) That same week, 422 students were confirmed positive while another 99 quarantined.
The intersection of COVID, teacher shortages and security issues is creating new problems for educators. Norwood says that due to security-related concerns, teachers keep doors closed and locked. But when classrooms that are packed with students have their doors shut, that means a lack of ventilation.
“Aside from feeling personal pressure myself, and fear of getting COVID … it makes me sorry for students because I don’t see them getting the best education that they can,” says Norwood.
The solution to all this? Norwood thinks increasing teacher pay would help. Though Nashville’s teachers are the highest paid in the state, their compensation doesn’t stack up to Nashville’s high cost of living. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimates that individual expenses are $35,312 for those without children and $62,367 for households with one parent and one child. MNPS-certificated employee salaries start at $48,121.84 and increase with qualifications and experience. MNPS employees received a 4 percent cost of living increase this year, though inflation eats into that increase as well.
“I don’t have enough information to be able to say, ‘Here’s what would solve the problem,’ except I do know that if you want to attract more people into a profession, you pay them better,” says Norwood. “But would you want to work in a profession where you knew that you would probably never make enough independently to buy a house in Nashville?”
Norwood goes on, referencing the recent controversy involving Gov. Bill Lee’s education adviser Larry Arnn insulting public school teachers.
“Would you want that job if your governor sat by while someone else said — someone that he holds in esteem — ‘teachers are educated in the dumbest parts of the dumbest schools and anybody can do it.’ Would you be attracted to that?
“What keeps me there is that I do care about the students,” says Norwood. “Our children are the future of our country. And if we don’t take care of them, I don’t know where that future will be.”
MNPS will host a hiring fair Saturday, Sept. 10, from 9 a.m. until noon at Hillsboro High School.
