Two House bills aim to relieve teacher shortages in some Arizona school districts by reimbursing university graduates for student loans if they teach in areas that need educators.
“I was just tired of seeing classrooms without teachers,” said Rep. David Schapira, D-17, sponsor of H2206 and a former high school teacher. “I was tired of seeing huge class sizes and schools not able to find teachers.”
Schapira’s bill would appropriate $3.5 million for the Teacher Shortage Student Loan Program, reimbursing up to 300 education graduates from Arizona universities or community colleges for up to the amount of one year of tuition and fees for each year they teach math, science or special education in areas where teachers are needed the most.
Under the plan, an education major who is an Arizona resident could enter into a contract with the Arizona Board of Regents, receiving a loan each year they were working on an education degree for as much as the cost of tuition and fees, which totals $2,382 at the University of Arizona this spring.
The student would have to begin teaching within one year of graduation and would not have to pay back one year of loan support for each year of teaching in a qualifying position. If a student chose not to teach in such a position, he or she would have to pay back the loan.
A second measure, H2331, proposes a similar program to fill teaching positions in schools on Indian reservations, which suffer from the shortage, said its sponsor Rep. Albert Tom, D-2.
“It’s an attempt to let the state know that there’s a need out there for rural teachers,” Tom said. “It’s something that needs to be on the state’s radar screen.”
While education officials do not have a firm number for how many teachers are needed, a measurement used in one 2003 study cited the number of teaching jobs taken by people with emergency teaching certificates, given when a position cannot be filled by someone with an Arizona teaching certificate.
The Morrison Institute at Arizona State University found that in 2001 the Piòon Unified School District in Navajo County, 31 teachers have emergency certificates, which is 38 percent of the district’s teachers. In the Gadsden Elementary School District in Yuma County, 48 teachers have emergency certificates, 36 percent of the district’s teachers.
Other districts with 15 percent or more of their teachers working with emergency certificates include: Nogales, Somerton, Bullhead City, Laveen, Ganado, Red Mesa, Higley, Dysart, Osborn and Murphy.
Both bills passed the House Universities, Community Colleges and Technology Committee in late January and are awaiting action by the Appropriations Committee.
The loan-reimbursement measures could help retain some education majors who plan to leave the state after graduation, said Purvi Shah, who until recently was president of the Future Teachers Club at the University of Arizona.
The education senior said she and most of her friends want to leave Arizona after graduation because they believe other states offer better teaching opportunities, including higher pay.
The average teacher pay in Arizona for the 2004-05 school year was $42,905, compared to $47,674 nationally, according to the National Education Association. In California, the average teacher was paid $57,876 that year. Average teacher pay in other nearby states was: $43,949 in Colorado, $43,394 in Nevada; and $39,391 in New Mexico.
Shah said the extra support might prompt some students to stay in Arizona — at least for a couple of years.
School district officials face more job openings than they can fill not only because education majors are lured away to other states, but because rural isolation and better paying jobs elsewhere drive some working teachers to leave after just a few years.
About 20 to 30 teachers of 150 leave Holbrook Unified School District each year and need to be replaced, said Mary Koury, superintendent of the Holbrook district. Because Arizona universities don’t yield enough applicants who stay to teach in the state, district officials find teachers in other states, including Oregon, North Dakota, South Dakota and Utah, she said.
“It’s getting worse. I think that fewer and fewer people are going into special education, math and science,” she said. “I definitely think it (the measure) would help.”
The Holbrook district has offered teachers pay incentives, Koury said, but she added she is fighting an uphill battle. This year, two positions for special-education teachers remained vacant.
To get teachers to stay, the Chinle Unified School District received government funding to offer its teachers continuing education and monetary incentives, which reduced the number of vacant positions in its 300-teacher faculty from 50 in 2004 to 10 this school year, said Javier Abrego, Chinle superintendent. The district also collaborates with Northern Arizona University and Arizona State University on several programs, including long-distance learning, he said.
John Wright, Arizona Education Association president, said, “We have to find a way through funding and other measures so that schools can compete with other professions.”
Djamila Grossman is the Don Bolles Fellow in the University of Arizona Journalism Department. She is spending the spring semester of her senior year covering rural and suburban issues at the state Legislature for the journalism department’s Community News Service.