The Teacher Shortage Is Real and I'm Worried

When I went back to college to complete my BA in Education in the fall of 2020, I worried that I was setting myself up for the same mistake many new college students make when they’re young – an expensive degree that doesn’t guarantee them a job.

Now, as I embark on my final two semesters, my worries are different. Will I have a manageable class size, or be expected to teach 32 kids? Will I have prep periods, or be forced to cover classes that lack a teacher instead? Will I even be able to be an effective educator, despite my training and education, given the current state of the profession?

As a teacher in training, I browse job openings in schools often. With kids going back to school as we speak, my stomach sinks as I see how many vacancies there still are. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise. This dilemma has been decades in the making. Burnout has consistently been a concern for educators, but COVID related issues such as impromptu online schooling, mask debates, media and political games, and unreasonable expectations have only exacerbated the issue in recent years.

And it’s only going to continue to get worse.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, by 2025 there will be an estimated 100,000 decrease in the supply of teachers, and 100,000 increase in the demand for teachers that are qualified in every aspect. (The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought: The first report in ‘The Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market’ series | Economic Policy Institute (epi.org) ) As a result of this severe need for educators, the US can expect things like budget cuts, less qualified teachers, and more work outside contractual hours.

So, why should you care? Montana faces a unique set of challenges. If you have loved ones who work in or attend public school in Montana, this will impact you.

Montana is large and rural compared to most other states. With an area of 147,000 square miles, Montana is the 4th biggest state in the nation, geographically. To get from Troy, in the northwest corner of the state, to Broadus in the southeast corner is 689 miles (an 11-hour drive). It’s the same distance from DC to Chicago.

Montana only has 7 cities with a population of over 10,000: Billings, Missoula, Bozeman, Great Falls, Butte, Helena, and Kalispell. Populations range from 24,000 to 110,000 - still much smaller than cities in other states. This is one of the things most of us love about Montana. However, a large portion of school funding comes from property taxes so it’s important to understand what that means for a state as vast and rural as Montana.

As of this writing, there are 1179 open public school educator positions listed on the Office of Public Instruction website (Montana Office of Public Instruction (mt.gov)). While some of those jobs are in the larger cities, most of them are in rural towns. Let me give you some examples:

Trego: 5 job listings

Population: 855

Location: 55 miles north of Kalispell on the Canadian border

Philipsburg: 4 job listings, including a sign language interpreter. 

Population of 937 

Location: 53 miles from Butte

Ronan: 2 job listings, including a speech/language pathologist. 

Population: 1812

Location: 60 miles between Missoula and Kalispell, on the Flathead Indian Reservation

Wolf Point: 19 job listings

Population: 2,700

Location: Fort Peck Indian Reservation, 290 miles from Billings. In fact, the closest city to Wolf

Point is actually Williston, ND, still 96 miles away

Winnett: 11 job listings

Population: 206

Location: 94 miles north of Billings

Pray: 2 job listings

Population: 719

Location: 45 miles outside of Bozeman, and about 35 miles from Yellowstone National Park

Rapelje: 3 job listings

Population: 105

Loction: 47 miles northeast of Billings

Plevna: 14 job listings

Population: 311

Location: 210 miles east of Billings, on the North Dakota border

Box Elder has so many job listings that I am praying some of them are repeats that got posted more than once by mistake. They currently have 31 job openings listed. Box Elder’s population is around 790 because it’s incorporated into Rocky Boy West, on the Rocky Boy’s Reservation. Box Elder is 88 miles northwest of Great Falls. 

My guess is that you haven’t even heard of some of these little towns. I certainly hadn’t, and I’ve lived in Montana my entire life. Montana is full of tiny rural towns like these that are hours from anywhere.

According to the Montana Office of Public Instruction, 64% of Montana’s public school funding comes from state aid such as fees and income taxes. 29% of the funding comes from property taxes, and the remaining 7% comes from outside sources such as federal funding.

That means 93% of public education funding is reliant on taxes and fees collected from Montana residents. While most jobs are offering much more than minimum wage due to current demand for workers, Montana’s minimum wage still only reached $9.20 this year. Businesses in towns like Missoula and Billings and Great Falls may be able to offer someone $15/hr, but can a local store in Ronan pay that much? Does Plevna even have a store? (The answer is no, they do not). Who is funding the schools in these towns? Who is paying the teachers? Some of these school can only afford to offer a salary of $28,000 a year. The expectation falls on the educator to move to hundreds of miles sometimes from any real city and be paid poverty wages for a profession that requires skills and education they had to earn through a 4-year college degree. Most likely, they have student loans to pay. $28,000 hardly enough money to buy a house, especially in the current housing market. It’s not enough money to travel during summer break, buy a boat or a camper, or really make living so far from everything worthwhile.

Relying on property and income taxes from 100 low- and middle-class families to fund a school property is unreasonable.

Rural towns will be hit the hardest, but even our bigger cities will be impacted. My 3rd grader had a last minute classroom shift when her school ended up short a 2nd grade teacher at the last minute, and had to rearrange a handful of teachers and kids to make it work. It’s the last week of August, and there are more than 20 positions listed just in Missoula. Meadow Hill Middle School has had a Special Education position listed since April that remains unfilled. OPI listed five jobs on August 24th . Some districts have already started school, without the staff they need to function.

Montana kids deserve a good education. They deserve qualified teachers. They deserve art, and music, and field trips, and science fairs, and after-school sports, and speech therapy, and an up-to-date library. If we want our kids to get the education they deserve, we all have to care.