ROANOKE, Va. – Across the nation, teacher shortages continue, and Virginia is no different.
Last school year, it saw more than 3,500 vacancies.
The Virginia Department of Education took significant steps to address the issue.
The department launched the ‘Grow Your Own’ initiative, which is an educator preparation strategy. The ‘Grow Your Own’ initiative focuses on addressing the financial, recruitment and preparation of its teachers.
In addition to this initiative, the department modernized its teacher licensure process. Educators can now renew their licenses online.
“In the beginning, the teacher licensure was paper. So, teachers had to get their applications together, submit [them] to us and we had to mail them. As of Nov. 29, they switched over to a new format, which will enable teachers to submit their applications online so that it will be an electronic version, and that will help with the process in terms of speeding up the process,” said Chief Human Resource Officer Dominick McKee with Roanoke City Public Schools.
The Virginia Department of Education said renewal backlogs for current teachers have been eliminated because of this process.
McKee said that is just one aspect of addressing the problem.
Roanoke City Public Schools has not seen a decrease in teachers. 10 News spoke with McKee about the city’s retention efforts.
“As for retaining teachers, I think the division is responsible for retaining teachers. So, we do a multitude of things. One thing would be our compensation package for our teachers are competitive, our benefits that we offer. We offer wrap-around support in terms of mentors. We also have a job fair coming up soon.”