With more than 30 teachers having left Jackson-Reed in the past year, classes have become overcrowded. This led to students being involuntarily switched out of classes at the beginning of the school year.
2,051 students are enrolled at Jackson-Reed High School presently, with a mere 250 teachers and staff members to support. Some classes are filled with over 35 students and are instructed by one teacher, which takes a huge toll on the quality of education for students. The overcrowding has led to the formation of new classes, which takes away planning periods from teachers and staff who involuntarily gained another class.
The district policy states a cap of 25:1 to the amount of students per high school class.
Becoming a teacher requires a bachelor’s degree and 60+ college credits. Not all teachers district-wide fulfill this, but due to the lack of educators, they are still able to work. Substitute teachers have different requirements.
The hiring process for a new teacher varies depending on documents, background checks, and how long those processes take. On average the onboarding process takes about two weeks.
“Not having a teacher definitely messed me up, especially when I didn’t understand anything. None of [the substitutes] are trained to be a biology teacher,” said sophomore Claire Yoder. With no biology teacher her freshman year, she instead experienced a rotation of multiple different teachers and staff watching over the class while a permanent teacher was found.
This shortage is nothing new for DCPS, as the issue soared in 2019. “Some teachers ask about concepts they say we should have learned in middle school, but I did not learn those concepts, which could be attributed to not having a teacher,” sophomore Ava Piotrowski said.
Piotrowski had a permanent substitute for her sixth grade science class at Hardy Middle School during the last six months of the school year. Reflecting back, she feels that “if there isn’t an actual teacher giving useful work, then some students might not pick up on important concepts and information they need in the future.”
The lack of teachers is taking away the motivation that was once there to do the school work handed to them. Yoder commented about the motivation deficit after receiving a permanent teacher: “Once we got the teacher, everyone was like ‘we aren’t doing this anymore.’” Similarly, Piotrowski said that “there wasn’t actual work for us so we could just do whatever we wanted.”
Last year, the Washington Teachers’ Union led a strike against DCPS to renew their contract. This contract would allow for more teachers to be introduced into DCPS schools, acting as a start to the decline of teacher shortages. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Chancellor Lewis Ferebee released a statement once the strike was resolved. “This agreement provides our educators with competitive raises that will help the District to retain and attract the best talent for our schools.” The 1,337 new hires in DCPS as of this current school year are the start of this agreement in action.
