Children are our future. Those who pick education as a profession have a certain level of responsibility and resiliency to help shape the lives of young people. But it’s been tough attracting and retaining in Michigan.
Today, school districts partnerships, colleges and university programs, and statewide funding and initiatives are implementing resources, repayments, and apprenticeship programs to support the next generation of teachers.
Kelli Brozanski, the interim Director of the Office of Educator Excellence with the State of Michigan, has been in this role since July, but part of the Michigan Department of Education for eight years.
Within her role, she helps create, implement, and administer programs in the educational ecosystem to develop and maintain the educator workforce across the state.
Brozanski says each district experiences teacher staffing issues differently.
“One problem we have seen has been enrollment in teacher preparation programs,” she says. “Teacher retention program enrollment in Michigan declined from 23,203 in 2011-2012 to 9,512 in 2016-2017, a 59% decrease, but rebounded to 14,829 in 2021-2022, a 56% increase from 2016.”
Why were there less people choosing education as career pathways during those times? Brozanski says “from 1995 to 2015, Michigan had the lowest inflation-adjusted, total revenue growth for schools in the nation.”
This decline of support for students and staff adversely affected the achievement of students, making it more difficult to attract teachers.
Good news is, that’s changing for the better, she says.
“During the fiscal year 2023 and the fiscal year 2024, children benefited from historically strong education budgets from the Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, with advocacy from the State Board of Education, Michigan Department of Education, local and intermediate school district educators and education organizations. These investments made teaching a more desired profession in Michigan, and teacher recruitment and retention initiatives since Grow Your Own that are funded in the budget have made a difference.”
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Becky Smith, Director of Human Resources at Bay-Arenac Intermediate School District, says there’s a lot of creativity involved in finding professionals who might be interested in switching careers and becoming teachers.Becky Smith, Director of Human Resources at
Bay-Arenac Intermediate School District, works to recruit and retain career and technical education teachers, special education teachers, therapists, social workers, school psychologists, mental health counselors, literacy coaches, and more.
Smith says her district is fortunate to have a full teaching staff, but that’s not always the case for many districts who experience high turnover rates, or constant job openings.
“That teaching staff has been made full by being able to bring on some of our own staff who had yet to obtain certificates,” she says. “We have worked really hard in order to seek out people who are interested in teaching, and coming back to teaching.”
Smith says there’s a lot of creativity involved in order to seek out candidates such as nurses or professionals in the tech field who may have interest in switching careers and becoming teachers.
For many professionals who are used to working nights or weekends though, the appeal of a regular school calendar is one selling point.
Smith says one of the hardest jobs to fill lately has been social workers within the district.
Legislators and the Michigan Department of Education have helped provide funding in order to increase mental health counselors and social workers within schools, which she says is a step in the right direction.
“We’re lucky enough this year that we’ve been able to partner with both Saginaw Valley State University and Central Michigan University,” she says.
“In the state of Michigan, there is a smart grant that is available for mental health and retention for school psychologists, counselors, and social workers. We’re currently working with SVSU and are able to support social workers, through internships. This has been a huge partnership that we’re extremely happy to have here at Bay-Arenac ISD.”
The district also has a partnership with CMU, providing a school psychologist internship.
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Saginaw Valley State UniversityThe Bay-Arenac ISD works with SVSU and the state to support future social workers through internships. Smith says they are able to pay the student intern for his or her role in the school, which is something that was typically a volunteer role in years past.
“We’re seeing a shift in the ability to pay for some of these positions with some of the supporting grants that are out there,” Smith says.
Talent Together is an initiative that is an alternative path to education, developed in collaboration with the Michigan Department of Education.
The program provides free education to Michigan residents, paraeducators, substitute teachers, parents, community members, or professionals with high school diplomas the chance to start or change careers to the education field.
Participants get personalized support from Talent Together while following a degree or certification program at a partnering college or university. While doing so, they earn a wage while working full-time, and after finishing certification courses, can become an apprentice teacher.
This innovative partnership is made up of 56 Michigan Intermediate School Districts and 18 colleges and universities. The career pathway program has helped more than 900 aspiring teachers working to earn their credentials, saving them $8.5 million so far.
CMU is one of the universities participating in Talent Together.
Dr. Jillian Davidson, Director of
Educator Preparation Programs at CMU, collaborates with departments to support faculty, staff, and students. In her role, Davidson is seeing a growing number of individuals interested in the teacher education program.
“Our numbers are steadily on the increase,” she says. “I believe that this is in part to the hard work that our State Legislature has put into place with funding initiatives that have been a huge value add for individuals that maybe previously had thought about going into education, but issues such as spending a semester of student teaching without compensation was a barrier for them. When students are able to get that funding, that makes finishing a program like ours more reasonable.”
Because of the teacher shortage, Davidson is seeing many students electing to major in education fields, with the prospect of a job at graduation. CMU is also one of five education programs working on addressing the shortage of educators in rural communities in the state. The state-funded initiative is called the
MiCAREER Resource Hub, partnering with CMU, Michigan State University, Eastern Michigan University, Northern Michigan University, and SVSU.
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Photo courtesy of Central Michigan UniversityThe Bay-Arenac ISD district also has a partnership with CMU, providing a school psychologist internship.“Together, all five institutions are working to recruit candidates who are either almost done with the degree, have a degree but not a certification, or have a certification but want to add an additional certification in rural communities to better serve their population,” she says. “As a collective group, we’re each offering accessible programs in online, hybrid, or asynchronous programs so that candidates can participate in and complete programs without leaving their community.”
The $15 million funded grant program helps pay for tuition and expenses of future educators. The first cohort is launching right now, with a group of about 20 to 25 students this fall. Davidson says it was important for CMU to get involved in this program because many of the partnering districts they serve are rural communities.
“We believe we can create opportunities for high quality, accessible programs for individuals to be really strong educators and not have to leave their communities,” she says. “As a profession, anytime we can collaborate together, we improve collectively. All children are deserving of quality educators, and through creative problem-solving, collaboration and supporting one another, we are able to do more together than we can do on our own.”
When it comes to current teachers, she says additional opportunities for endorsement areas on teaching certificates can help increase retention rates. Acknowledging, respecting and uplifting teachers for their hard work in the field can also go a long way. On a larger scale, Davidson says getting teachers back on the full pension system, in order to increase the longevity of teachers again.
“When we talk about educators as professionals and we uplift them and honor the work they do with children, we see how important that work is. When we continue to have that message, I think that helps keep people in the field because they feel that value,” she says.
The State of Michigan also provides a $10,000
scholarship/fellowship for 2,500 future educators each year, and a $9,600
stipend per semester to help support student teachers on their journey.
Earlier his year, the Michigan Department of Education also announced and awarded the first round of student loan repayment program grants. This provided more than 9,500 educators from over 500 school districts in Michigan with the first payments from the
Student Loan Repayment Program. This equated to more than $19.2 million in repayments to help schools retain teachers and educators in critical shortage areas, part of the state’s
Top 10 Strategic Education Plan.
The Michigan Department of Education also has
Grow Your Own programs, to help address vacancies and shortages.
Although statewide funding is extremely beneficial to students and teachers, working together on a more regional scale has also proved valuable for local school districts.
Smith says programs such as Talent Together help connect high school students to college, and college graduates back into neighborhood schools as professionals.
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Photo courtesy of the Bay Area ISDThe goal of state programs such as Talent Together is to connect high school students to college, and college graduates back into neighborhood schools as professionals.“Working with our universities helps us develop those relationships so that we can continue to support and bring more students graduating from high school or more teachers who have left the field, and bring them back into our schools so that we can continue to support them more than we ever have,” she says.
Providing support, professional learning, paid internships, and apprenticeships is going to help retain teachers, says Smith. It helps increase a respect for the teaching profession, and a reminder that what these folks do is important.
“Paying for those internships is going to make people feel like coming back into education is doable, that they’re not going to be able to afford rent, buy groceries, or make their car payment because of an unpaid 40-hour internship,” she says.
“The State of Michigan is doing some great things like student loan repayment, stipends for student teaching and mentorship, and recognizing the importance of teachers and paying them to do the work are going to keep them in the field.”