Report on Teacher Shortage for 2017-18
Thanks to all the superintendents who took their valuable time to complete the survey on
teacher shortage for this fall. Thanks to you, we now have three years of data to compare.
Before this data is shared with anyone else I wanted to share it with you.
This fall 141 districts responded, compared with 164 last year and 169 in Fall 2015
The breakdown of districts reporting was as follows:
By Area:
2015
34%
20%
25%
10%
11%

2016
34%
29%
23%
8%
5%

2017
32%
28%
23%
8.5%
8.5%

2015
Rural
75%
Suburban
15%
County-wide 3%

2016
69%
14%
6%

2017
69.5%
17%
4%

North
Central
South
East
West
By Type

Did you experience a teacher shortage?
2015
2016
Yes
95%
92%
No
5%
8%

2017
94%
6%

Areas of Shortage
2015
Sp. Education 59% (95)
Science
63% (101)
Math
57% (92)
For. Lang.
36% (58)
English
34% (55)
Elem.
26% (42)
Fine Arts
20% (32)
Agriculture 19% (31)
FACS
12% (19)
Business
Social St.
9% (14)
PLTW
2% (3)
Other
7% (11)

2017
69% (97)
57% (80)
57% (80)
40% (56)
30% (43)
30% (43)
16% (23)
13% (19)
17% (24)
18% (26)
6% (9)
30% (42)
13% (19)

2016
65% (106)
60% (97)
50% (82)
34% (56)
41% (67)
26% (43)
17% (28)
15% (25)
21% (35)
18% (30)
5% (8)
26% (42)
13% (21)

 How many shortages did you experience? (% of Districts reporting)
2015
2016
2017
1
9%
10%
2
23%
18%
3
24%
25%
23%
4
24%
21%
17%
5
9%
15%
17%
6 or more
16%
6%
15%
Did you have to apply for emergency permits?
2015
2016
2017
Yes
79%
83%
88%
No
21%
17%
12%
How many permits? (per district, counting only districts using permits)
2015
2016
2017
1
23%
20%
21%
2
24%
34%
35%
3
10%
15%
19%
4
15%
16%
7%
5
5%
7%
10%
6 or more
5%
6%
13%
Did you have to employ teachers outside their licensed area?
2015
2016
2017
Yes
38%
50%
49%
No
62%
50%
51%
How many outside their licensed area? (% of Districts, counting only districts using these
individuals outside licensed area )
2015
2016
2017
1
37%
38%
17%
2
28%
35%
16%
3
22%
8%
4%
4
6%
10%
3%
5 or more
8%
9%
6%
Are you using Full-time substitute teachers?
2015
2016
2017
Yes
22%
23%
23%
No
78%
77%
77%

 How many substitutes are you using? By district, counting only those districts using subs)
2015
2016
2017
1
77%
61%
59%
2
11%
33%
19%
3
6%
0%
13%
4 or more
6%
6%
9%
Have you implemented recruiting procedures?
2015
2016
2017
Yes
NA
47%
54%
No
NA
53%
46%
Did you struggle to find qualified applicants?
2015
2016
2017
Yes
NA
NA
92%
No
NA
NA
8%

Comments from the 2017 survey:
Teachers are moving to other districts like no other time in my career. Some are leaving in the first week of school, one left
today (9-21-17). The teacher shortage is creating districts taking teachers from each other to fill slots and lots of
dominoes falling from that. Some have 15-20 years and moving.
Secondary Special Education and Speech Language Pathology have been particularly challenging to fill.
Teaching has been de-professionalized. Bright students don't want to pursue that kind of career.
We are short one HS Spanish Teacher (67%). Having a difficult time getting apps for this position.
Thanks for taking the time to compile this information
We are finding that we get many candidates with experience who want to transfer to our school; but we can't afford to
replace positions with experienced teachers (and still give raises). We are getting high numbers of applicants (40+) for
admin positions, which seems that more young teachers are going this route and the market is saturated with those
looking for entry level jobs.
Pool of applicants is short in both quantity and quality. Talented individuals are not coming to the profession even though
they desperately want to teach. It's just not worth the financial risk.
Testing is keeping good teachers out of the professions

 There are fewer candidates, but there are good ones out there.
Teacher shortages are increasing each year as well as a lack of ample pool of qualified applicants. In addition, we continue
to hear that if Indiana does not begin to treat teachers and public education better, more of our younger teachers will be
leaving also.
Very serious situation. We cannot find qualified people for leaves and we are viewing currently employed teachers as our
hiring pool not new graduates.
Rural secondary schools are hit the worst.
Competition from neighboring districts with more money is magnifying this problem for us.
Indiana stinks for educators!
Very few talented people want to go into teaching at this time due to the terrible pay situation that exists due to
legislative action
Where we once had 15 to 20 qualified applicants, we are now lucky to see ANY qualified candidates, and often are taking
people with qualifications less than optimal.
Two: points: public education continues to be blasted politically, the lack of pay increases does not allow a college student
to repay loans and make a reasonable wage.
Pool is shallow, quality pool is even more shallow.
The candidate pool is horrible.
High Ability License should have a qualifying test.
We lose teachers because a teacher can leave us and go to another school and receive a pay raise of $10,000 in Math,
English, and Science
Has become a major problem for us
The number of licensed teachers by the State Government includes Life License teachers that no longer want or can teach.
We are fortunate by virtue of geography; it takes more effort these days but we have mostly been able to fill except if
there is a last minute resignation.
Finding and hiring new teachers is beginning one of the more difficult tasks for rural districts. State licensing requirements
hinder the number of available candidates. Rural communities do not have the housing, salary potential, and other

 Amenities as the larger communities making it more difficult to attract candidates.
Big problem finding qualified teachers in all areas. Big problem having teachers recruited away from our district even
after school has started. Very frustrating and will only get worse
We are fortunate to have a strong reputation and healthy budget to attract good candidates
We need to discuss the positives of being a teacher. salary benefits longevity.
I could go on and on, but if folks are not truly passionate and willing to work for low pay to be just a number (test score)
then we will NEVER attract and retain HQ people.
We have found quality lacking in teachers coming to us from transition to teaching programs
The challenge is real!

This is strictly a financial situation. The loss of increment pay and the manner in which IEERB controls local contracts,
teachers career earnings are never guaranteed to be financially rewarding for a professional career.
The politicians/ legislators have created this issue.
In the past we had 30+ applicants for elementary teaching positions. This summer we had some open elementary
teaching positions and only had five or so applicants with several of those not being quality applicants.
It's real even if people say it's not
We were lucky to only have one on an emergency permit. Big shortage of applicants for chemistry, English, Special Ed,
etc.
We need the ability to pay teachers more, so we can compete with surrounding communities.
We are paying new teachers more to get them onboard and upsetting loyal teachers that have been here.
Shortage is REAL - especially for small, rural schools seeking quality candidates.
The shortage of qualified teachers is at epic proportions. It will take decades to repair the damage that Mitch Daniels
caused to public education is this state!

 Very bad for the future of education
The limited compensation and negativity provided by legislature has severely hampered the teaching ranks.
I have worked in small, rural, large, urban, and now, medium suburban districts. I see that suburban districts tend to
get a more robust set of applicants than in other situations where i have served. Even so, the robustness is gone from
almost every segment of the candidate pool except elementary. Numbers are smaller at elementary as well--because
the overall pool of highly qualified people wanting to be teachers has declined in Indiana.
Our foreign language shortage was in American Sign Language
Salary is going to doom the profession
Funding, when we are funded properly and can give a teacher the money they deserve out of college, the shortage
will end. Teachers coming out of college having to live on food stamps is not a living they want to embark upon.
It will continue.
Regardless of what the morons who created this shortage in Indianapolis say there is a crisis right now in hiring qualified
teachers.
Not only are we having a harder time filling openings, we are experiencing more teacher turnover and an increase in
amount of openings. This is due to the inability of granting raises to current experience staff for greater education and
experience when they do get compensated for it when they hire on at a different district. The current law helps create
and aggravate the problem.
Terrible shortage of qualified candidates
We typically hire from BSU since we are so close. This year we were only able to hire 2 of 7 teachers new to the
profession. The other 5 were from surrounding districts.
We only had 2 openings this year so we were fortunate. We were able to fill with licensed teachers. What is hard to
express is that even when we are able to fill position, the number of options/choices is so much smaller than it used to
be. We used to get dozens of applicants for each opening and now we often must choose from 1 or 2 candidates. The
key to your survey is "qualified" candidates.
We are beginning to lose teachers to private industry more than in the past. Even though we pay less than other
schools, we have been able to hire teachers who want to come here; however, they leave us and leave education,
not necessarily going to another school.
Hiring a few remaining applicants was a concern due to lack of experience and/or basic knowledge. Neighboring districts
are hiring our employees to fill their vacancies which creates issues with working relationships.

 The state's change in compensation has really hurt districts as has the licensing exam requirements
Pay matters more to the new generation than ever before
We receive applicants but the quality of applicant is often less than our desirable professional standard.