Across the United States, public schools are undergoing a teaching staff crisis, and Mississippi is not immune to the shortage despite now having entry level salaries higher than the national average.
The Mississippi Department of Education reported special education, mathematics, foreign languages and science as critical shortage subjects for the 2022-23 school year.
Both Columbus Municipal and Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated school districts were among 104 districts reporting critical teacher shortages in the MDE report. Lowndes County School District was not on the list.
In response to a near constant shortage of educators, schools across the country, including Mississippi, have added educator preparation programs, formerly known in the state as teacher academies, to their class offerings.
LCSD and SOCSD both have teacher academies at their respective career and technology centers, which aim to inspire high school students to become teachers through classroom instruction, hands-on field experience and a glimpse at expectations for education majors in college.
Those students were among participants in Mississippi University for Women’s inaugural Teacher Academy Conference to help support those programs, which aimed to attack the teacher shortage head-on.
Hope Durst, an assistant professor of education at MUW, said The W is hoping to inspire the next generation of teachers.
The idea for the teacher academy conference came when the School of Education Marketing, Recruitment and Retention Committee met to discuss ways to recruit new students to come to campus to become teachers, Durst told The Dispatch.
“We have such a critical teacher shortage that high schools in Mississippi started having teacher academies for the high schoolers thinking they want to go into education,” Durst said. “… We thought, ‘Let’s give them a day on campus to work with the faculty they will have in classes and see what we do here to sort of see themselves in that pipeline.”
Students from LCSD, SOCSD and Louisville Municipal School District were treated to breakfast and coffee before attending three different sessions hosted by professors at MUW — virtual reality in the classroom, early childhood education and a hands-on math activity. After the three sessions concluded, students toured the campus and attended an information session before returning to their respective schools.
Bonnie Oppenheimer, chair for the MUW Department of Sciences and Mathematics, led the hands-on math activity. In focusing on the math educator shortage, she said the goal is to teach new educators how to effectively teach math.
“This is a thumbs up or down question — do you like mathematics, yes or no?” Oppenheimer asked the group.
After seeing many students with their thumbs down, she told them often it’s because math stopped making sense to them and became memorization. Nearly all of the students nodded their heads.
“Math is so important because it’s the underpinning for most of the understanding we have for how the world works,” Oppenheimer told The Dispatch. “The reason why a lot of people don’t like it is because we don’t teach it well. If students come to the W, we’ll teach them how to teach it well.”
Dill, whose second year teacher academy students attended, said her students enjoyed the hands-on activities, faculty interaction and small campus feel.
Haley Marie Fisackerly is a senior education major at MUW and a Columbus-native. She was one of the W’s student ambassadors for the inaugural Teacher Academy Conference, and it gave her an opportunity to inspire the next generation of teachers.
“It helps me because I see these students come in, and they want to be teachers one day,” Fisackerly said. “I know they’re going to come in, and there will be great teachers behind me as well. … Teachers are so important because they are with you from beginning to end and watch you grow up just like your parents. They get to see and help you grow, and they want the best for you every single day.”
Teacher academies, early childhood education programs
Ami Weldon, LCSD career and technology center educator preparation instructor, said the LCSD teacher academy began in 2018 when the CTC building opened, and it is a two-year program.
“We always begin with just some college exploration, but then we dig into human growth and development through all of the ages — preschool through teenagers when they would be exiting high school,” Weldon said. “We also talk about instructional strategies that are research-based that are proven over the years on what are effective to learners. We go over assessment strategies, classroom management, differentiation for different populations of students, disabilities. We cover a really broad range for students in the program for two years.”
Since then, some of Weldon’s students have gone on to college to study education. While the majority of her students are female, Weldon said the males who enter the educator prep program are the ones who stay with education long term.
“A lot of the boys don’t figure out what they want to do until they are older,” Weldon said. “A majority of our males stay with it. If they join this class, they already know they want to work with kids. … I’ve already had some male students who graduated from the program, and they are already in college. One of them is in the elementary career path, and the other one changed a little bit and didn’t stay in teaching but went to family counseling.”
Hands-on field experience is part of the educator prep curriculum for students, and they will visit all age groups to gain that experience. In Lowndes County, teachers across the district welcome the educator prep students into their classrooms and serve as a mentor through lesson plans and instruction.
Weldon said the field experience is the part that makes or breaks the decision for her students to pursue education.
However, for those who decide they don’t want to become an educator, the class gives them insight into helping children whether that is in another child-related field, like pediatrics, or even as a parent.
April Dill, teacher academy instructor in Starkville, said it is an honor knowing that her students want to become teachers to help the next generation of students.
“I consider it a privilege to get to inspire and mold the next generation of educators,” Dill said. “We need good teachers, teachers who are invested in their students and who want to make a difference. I am blessed to have a small part in directing students towards a career that I consider my calling.”
The Starkville teacher academy started in 2006, but before the option was there, students were offered early childhood education.
In CMSD, there is not a teacher academy, but an early childhood education program is offered to students who want to work in child care, education or other related fields.
Robin Cregeen is the early childhood education teacher at McKellar Technology Center, instructing 10th-12th graders how to work with children in their most formative years.
She teaches her students a range of skills from how to build lesson plans, to how to change a diaper, to how to run a child care center.
Makeena Johnson, an 11th grader and second year early childhood education student, said the class has helped her realize she wants to work with children but also run her own business.
“I want to work in a day care and eventually own my own,” Johnson said. “I like working with little kids. Older kids are just too sassy. I like little babies because they make me so happy when they first smile.”
Cregeen said most of her students prefer hands-on learning, like she does, and her second year students are working at the Columbus Christian Center day care with children six-weeks-old to four-years-old for field experience necessary to complete the course.
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