There are 18,774 educators currently encamped in West Virginia’s public school classrooms – and 1,705 of them, while certified, are still teaching out of their content areas.
For students on the autism spectrum or with other special needs, that’s an especially telling number, local and national pundits say, in that they may not getting the pronounced attention needed for their particular circumstances.
That’s not just West Virginia. That’s everywhere.
Resignations and retirements mounted at the peak of the pandemic across the U.S., as educators grappled with distance-learning and overall burnout – wrought from the isolation and lack of face-to-face learning which were the unwanted byproducts of that pivot.
Teacher shortages in the Mountain State, however, are nothing new, and that malaise was present before COVID.
Blame it on the paycheck.
With West Virginia traditionally languishing near the bottom rungs across the U.S. for teacher salaries, educators here, as said, have been known to leave for other career pursuits.
Those who don’t quit their profession oftentimes quit the state, as it were – jumping to higher-paying jobs in neighboring states.
Which, as anyone in the local school district or business community will say, is an economic issue especially thorny in the border counties and southern coalfields.
And now, teachers and others who work in other public jobs are looking at a new shadow looming over their paychecks.
It’s being cast by the state Public Employees Insurance Agency, the entity that carries their health coverage.
PEIA is proposing 10% increase in insurance premiums, added to the 24% hike, with its additional $147 a month surcharge for spouses, that had just been approved last spring.
The agency, meanwhile, is hosting public comment forums across the state. Morgantown’s was Nov. 9.
With three more forums to go, and a vote that will be cast next month by the PEIA finance board, the proposed increase, teachers and others say, is probably a done deal.
Math homework
And while those on PEIA do generally pay less than those covered by private plans, the timing is still tough.
Relative, too.
It’s especially true in Sam Brunett’s household, as the Morgantown High School teacher and American Federation of Teachers union president told The Dominion Post previously.
“I’m actually making less today than I was five years ago,” said Brunett, who is married with two teenaged sons. “It’s a revolving door.”
Even more troubling, said Brunett, who is coming up on 30 years in teaching, young people aren’t majoring in education to the numbers they were when he was a new college graduate heading to his first classroom.
“You don’t have the kids coming in,” he said.
And if the paychecks aren’t covering the premiums – “We aren’t gonna be able to recruit anybody,” the veteran teacher said.
Meanwhile, the state Department of Education recently released its final certified count for the 2023-24 school year, including those aforementioned teacher numbers.
As of Oct. 1, there are 245,101 students in West Virginia answering roll, in some form or another, every morning of every school day, the department reports.
That includes the 2,270 enrolled in charter schools and the 50 currently taking classes in the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and Blind.
Counselors, school nurses, psychologists and social workers are among the 14,903 staffers on the service personnel rolls.
The current state-aid formula comes out $5,180.41 per student, in public classrooms.
