Some Rural Arizona Schools Look To Other Countries To Fill Gaping Teacher Shortage

By Carrie Jung
Published: Monday, May 2, 2016 - 8:18am
Updated: Thursday, May 5, 2016 - 10:26am
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(Photo by Carrie Jung - KJZZ)
Teachers Lily Viclimbaga and Riza Casabuena are two of the eleven teachers from the Philippines that work at Casa Grande Union High School.
(Photo by Carrie Jung - KJZZ)
School administrators say it's now a teacher's market in Arizona. So for soon-to-be teachers like ASU student Kristen Fisher, the prospects of finding a teaching job are very good.

At the Casa Grande Union High School, guidance councilor Roy Lewis chats with one of the school’s English teachers near his office. Before saying goodbye, he asks his colleague if she speaks Spanish because the school needs a Spanish teacher.

"In any level, in any year, if a teacher can teach more than one section or more than one subject where we can combine things, we can make the loads smaller in both sections," Lewis explained.

Keeping classrooms adequately staffed is an ongoing task for faculty here. Today there are roughly six teacher positions open across the district, which is actually a significant improvement from a few years ago when there were 19 vacancies.

"So we first looked locally to see what was available, then we looked statewide," said Dr. Shannon Goodsell, the Casa Grande High School district superintendent. "After that we looked in the U.S. at several recruiting fairs and were not successful."

Dr. Shannon Goodsell is the Casa Grande High School district superintendent. He said with no prospect of filling those jobs any time soon, he began looking outside the country for solutions. The Philippines, to be specific.

Goodsell admits, he’d prefer to have teachers from the local community in his classes, but, "finding a special education teacher is hard enough," he explained. "Finding a special education teacher who would like to accept the low salaries in the state is even worse."

The Casa Grande Union High School District has been working with teachers from the Philippines for two years now. Goodsell said, in the beginning there was a little bit of culture shock from both the students and the teachers, but things are running more smoothly now. And while the need for qualified instructors is being temporarily met with this program, teacher Lily Viclimbaga added there are other benefits too.

"My main purpose of being a participant for our teacher exchange program is for me to have professional growth opportunities and it also helps me to learn U.S. methods of teaching," she said. "At the same time I will bring international perspectives to the classroom."

Filling large numbers of vacancies isn’t unique to Casa Grande. Not having enough teachers is a statewide problem.

"Teaching is really difficult right now. Budgets are thin," said Kelly Owen, a site coordinator and instructor with the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. "People haven’t had raises for seven to 10 years and so that’s definitely contributing to a teacher’s shortage everywhere."

Owen added, in the last few years the market for new teachers has changed a lot. When she started working with teacher candidates in 2011, she spent a lot of time helping them perfect their resumes so they could stand out from the crowd. But that’s not the case anymore.

"Last year most of my students had contracts by February. That is early in the world of education and this year it was even faster," explained Owen. "And one of the principals told them this is a very different market. You now have the upper hand."

The Arizona Department of Education doesn’t track district vacancies, but the Arizona School Personnel Administration Association estimates the state’s 230 school districts could have as many as 3,000 open positions, many of which get just zero to one applications. But while the statistics are concerning, Owen said, there is one saving grace in this equation.

"We’re all driven intrinsically by making a difference," she said. "And so the fortunate thing for most of us is that money is like, yeah, it’s sad [that there's so little of it], but we love what we do."

But for Casa Grande superintendent Dr. Shannon Goodsell, internal motivation only goes so far. For him the district just needs access to a little more money.

"What does it all boil down to? It all boils down to the almighty dollar," said Goodsell. 

A sentiment shared by many in the Arizona public education system. The tough question now is how much money is needed and exactly where that money will come from.