South Kent News

The Grandville Public School District is not suffering from a teacher shortage, according to comments made by board members at its March 6 meeting.

Superintendent Roger Bearup wanted to address the topic since they are heading into the end of the school year when teachers are prone to change jobs or retire, and the district begins to hire new teachers. He explained that the teacher shortage has been extremely difficult at the national level.  

Technically, there are enough teaching certificates in the nation to fit every job opening, Bearup said. But that statistic does not take into account teacher availability, location of schools, correct certifications and a number of other aspects.

“We don't have significant shortages,” Bearup said in the meeting. “Do we have challenges in unique positions? Yes, we do, as far as the number of applicants we get and so on. But we don't have the significant shortages. We are very similar in the number of candidates that we have for our job postings as we've always been. So, that's promising. But remember, those people are coming from somewhere. They're not all new teachers—some are new teachers, but they're coming from somewhere. So, it's creating more of a shortage. Until eventually, I'm not sure you're going to have the same number of applicants unless you do something about it.”

The superintendent did acknowledge that they have some issues with special education and hourly employee services.  

Schools in low-income urban locations and rural locations are most affected since they do not have incentives for teachers to come to their schools. Most districts—especially destination districts—only feel it in certain areas, like special education teachers or foreign languages. The shortage had begun across the country before the pandemic, but COVID-19 accelerated the situation.

In an effort to prevent the teacher shortage from impacting their district more and to help promote the career in the area, Grandville public schools are taking several steps. For starters, they are keeping their pay rates and benefits competitive. They are also providing professional development and certifications for their teachers and creating support systems to help with burnout and stress. Additionally, they have joined the West Michigan Teacher Collaborative, which has applied for a grant to help fund pathways for students to incentivize education and teaching in their future careers and also attract teachers to the district.