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Public Affairs coverage from our award-winning staff |
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Third Week of School, Kids Still Lack Teachers
Produced by Linda Lutton on Monday, September 21, 2009
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CPS sent eight substitutes to Amundsen High School this year as part of an insurance policy against a flood of extra students. The school was short teachers for 180 students. (WBEZ/Linda Lutton) |
This is the third week of school in Chicago. But thousands of high school students still haven't met their teachers. It's a longstanding problem that we reported on the first day of school. It happens when more students show up at a given school than the district projects. Kids get assigned to overcrowded classes, or see a revolving door of substitutes until permanent teachers are put in place. The district promised that kids would not have to wait as long for teachers this year. WBEZ's Linda Lutton checks in to see how things are going.
Related: Kids Start School Without Teachers
On the first day of school this year, Chicago's central office sent eight long-term substitutes to Amundsen High School on the North Side.
To principal Carlos Muñoz, it seemed like Christmas.
MUÑOZ: We needed three English teachers-we got 'em. We needed a social studies teacher, we got it. In past years we had to just flounder.
Muñoz says this year students are in class with consistent substitutes, though it's true that some of them are leading classes they're not qualified to teach.
MUÑOZ: Perfect? No. I mean, the perfect, ideal world would be you have the regular teacher the first day of school, OK? But it's a better solution? Yes.
Amundsen's subs were among 124 the district sent to 35 high schools- an insurance policy against a flood of extra kids. Amundsen, for instance, got nearly 200 extra students this year. The subs are meant to stand in until CPS gives schools the go-ahead to hire the extra teachers they need.
But some say this new solution is still a problem, one that CPS will have to solve if it wants to improve stubborn high school achievement scores and graduation rates.
KNOWLES: If a teacher isn't there, that's a fundamental problem.
Timothy Knowles directs the Urban Education Institute at the University of Chicago.
KNOWLES: It's a problem for the student, particularly kids who are coming from unstable environments. It's a problem for the teacher when the teacher does finally show up, because they are going to be battling the classroom back. And it's a problem for the school culture itself.
Knowles says that, especially in tough neighborhoods,the relationship between teacher and student is really important.
KNOWLES: To get to school and find that there's no one there, or that there's somebody there who may be gone tomorrow is exactly what high schools don't need.
It's not hard to find kids who still haven't met their permanent teachers. Students even have a name for the substitutes staffing their classes.
STUDENTS: Place holder…place holders
Placeholders. That's what's written on many students' schedules when they're assigned a class without a teacher.
LUTTON: When you see that, what does that mean?
STUDENT: I don't know, really. We ain't got no teacher at the moment.
These students go to Chicago Vocational Career Academy on the South Side.
STUDENT: We have different subs like every day. It was like different subs. And they don't really teach us nothing. They just give us crossword puzzles.
LUTTON: This is happening right now?
STUDENT: Uh-huh.
LUTTON: What class?
STUDENT: American Lit.
At this school, the enrollment projections were actually correct. So maybe it's the principal who didn't plan well here. But in this system, principals never know exactly how many kids they'll have or how many teachers they'll need.
Schools chief Ron Huberman has said he wants to get better at projections,and he's sped up the process of hiring teachers when the projections are off.
HUBERMAN: We've made some tweaks to the policy for this year, but it's something that we need to watch on an ongoing basis.
Some believe more than tweaking is needed-that Chicago needs to stop guessing where kids are going to high school and ask them to state their plans, or assign them.
That's what happens in New York City, which has hundreds more high schools than Chicago. Students there choose up to a dozen schools they'd like to attend, and the district matches them to a school. New York district spokesman Andrew Jacob says most students get an assignment letter five months before the first day of school.
JACOB: It basically wouldn't be possible to send way more students to a school than there is space available. Because before we place a student somewhere we know exactly how many seats are available.
Back at Amundsen, CPS authorized principal Muñoz to hire six new teachers last week-"definitely faster" than in previous years, he says. Muñoz is interviewing teachers right now. Then there'll be paperwork. He figures students will meet their teachers sometime between the end of this week and October 1st-that's four weeks into the school year.
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Peter Nerad, Chicago // Wednesday, September 23, 2009 @ 6:14 AM
I'm a substitute teacher looking for a History or English position. My resume is on the human resources web site. I left a resume at Amundsen last year for substituting. Of course there's a huge surplus of teachers for both subjects.
The jobs will fill quickly. Thank you very much for bringing this mismanagement to light. I can say that I have in the past taught a class that was formed four weeks after school started with extra students drawn from over crowded classes. It took six months to bond with that class.
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Heather, Western Suburbs // Wednesday, September 23, 2009 @ 2:01 PM
Absolutely inexcusable.
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Sarah, Chicago // Thursday, September 24, 2009 @ 6:50 AM
There are similar situations at the elementary school level. As a displace teacher, I was given 17 pages of "possible" positions. Many of the schools on the list have an "open" or "vacant" status. We were told to use the list to aid us in finding a job by Oct. 14. Many of the schools that I have called or sent resumes to says that these are not "opened" positions. There are only a few positions that have the status of "hiring/apply now" status, which means that they are actively seeking candidates.
This is very frustrating for me because over 90 percent of the supposely available jobs; the schools are not seeking candidates for these positions. As the previous person stated, it takes many months to bond with children when the teacher does not start the year with the students.
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Jay Rehak, Lincoln Square // Friday, September 25, 2009 @ 5:17 AM
This is clearly an opportunity for those who view the school system through data to easily rectify what is clearly a major educational problem.
There should Never be classrooms that wait a month for a teacher. Never.
The answer is simple enough: create a stable school system in which Fall enrollment is determined by late July. Have a sufficient number of teachers in place by school day one. Students who enroll or drop out after late July will not dramatically alter school numbers.
Again, in a data driven school system, this should not be difficult to achieve. Numbers established by July 31st (in schools that begin after Labor Day) should be the data that determines how many teachers are required for a particular school. Track E schools should have their enrollments solidified five weeks prior to their start dates.
The current system allows schools to begin the school year understaffed, which saves the school district money, but ultimately harms children.
If the priority of the system is children, the current system needs to change as suggested. If, on the other hand, the current priority is to save money, then the system currently in place is fine.
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rodentface, swside // Sunday, September 27, 2009 @ 9:20 PM
I don't believe the current system saves money at all. To the contrary, it costs more. Money that might be saved by skimping on teachers is doled out later, and then some, when students must enroll in evening school, Saturday school, and summer school to catch up on credits and skills.
Relationships are super important, especially to disadvantaged children and consistency is huge. The first 4 weeks are critical to the success of the ENTIRE year. The damage that results from the CPS's inability to properly staff neighborhood schools far outlasts the 4-6 weeks of placeholder babysitters.
We also need to be clear that this is a neighborhood school problem. Selective enrollment schools like magnets and charters don't have these types of problems - there are simple solutions already in place to prevent this kind of educational destruction among student populations with active, involved, and engaged parents, families, and communities. It is not a coincidence that those students who need the most support are denied it on such a large scale year after year after year. While I'm glad to see Mr. Huberman at least marginally address this issue, it is not a new problem and should not come as a shock to anyone.
Instead of spending $35 million to support 200 at-risk students in the face of possible gun violence, how about spending that $35 million on providing classroom teachers from day one to the students that need it the most? Or the $60 million dollars used for the inept IDS? There are simple solutions already available. CPS has just ignored them.
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Jodi, Chicago // Tuesday, October 06, 2009 @ 2:42 PM
Is there an update on this situation? Has CPS conducted its 20th day audit yet and approved hiring of additional teachers for the schools that need them?
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Fed-up Teacher, West Side // Thursday, October 15, 2009 @ 9:02 PM
I just got laid off, along with 8 other teachers in the CPS high school where I was teaching. I was highly qualified in the subject area that I was teaching - a "supposed" critical needs area (science). The part that bothers me the most is that is was already the 6th week of school when the lay-offs were announced. So much for stability in the classroom or stability for the teachers. I miss my students a lot already - things were going really great.
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