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As superintendent of the Brunswick Central School District, Angelina Maloney '96 finds herself shuffling deeper than ever before into a shrinking pile of resumes, trying to find qualified teaching candidates. The teacher shortage is only getting worse.

“It is an ever-increasing concern. For the last several years, STEM, ENL, foreign language, and special education teachers have been in short supply. Now they are next to impossible to find,” she says. “Smaller and poorer districts are at a disadvantage because the salaries are not as competitive. I am very worried about the ability to fill vacancies with highly qualified professionals.”

The teacher shortage is not new. New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) has been anticipating 180,000 openings over the next decade. But the shortage is getting more acute. The average age of a New York State teacher is 53 years old, according to NYSUT data, meaning there will be a large wave of teachers retiring in the coming years.


On October 27, Maloney joined Saint Rose President Marcia J. White, New York Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, and other representatives for an on-campus news conference to announce the College’s Build the Teacher Pipeline Initiative, a four-prong, donor-supported plan to address the teacher shortage.

Saint Rose already awards more degrees and certificates in education than any college or university in New York State, thanks in large part to its partnership with the New York City-based Center for Integrated Training and Education, but the College is also seeing a decline in the number of undergraduates choosing to major in education.

In September, the National Center for Education Statistics released a new report showing that 53% of public schools surveyed nationwide said they started the school year understaffed and 69% reported that having too few candidates in the pipeline was the biggest challenge to hiring teachers.

“Teachers are critical to educating and empowering our students to become our leaders of tomorrow,” Delgado said at the news conference. “We applaud Saint Rose for launching their Build the Teacher Pipeline Initiative, which incentivizes teaching as a career choice that is accessible to all students.”

The Saint Rose Build the Teacher Pipeline Initiative off ers free on-campus housing for new undergraduate students beginning in fall 2023 in order to remove financial obstacles for aspiring teachers and encourage more students to pursue the field. Incoming students are eligible for the funding for up to four years, saving more than $28,000 over the course of their studies at Saint Rose.

Saint Rose seeks to double the number of students entering the pipeline at the College, growing the number of entering undergraduate and graduate education students by about 100 each year.

“Not enough high school students are considering careers in teaching. The declining interest was acute in 2008, and although we saw a rebound and stabilization in our own enrollment in education programs, that changed again with the pandemic,” White says of the initiative. “The root of the teacher shortage is a nationwide drop in the number of students pursuing teaching degrees. As a leader in this field, Saint Rose believes the teacher shortage isn’t just a crisis for the state to solve, it is a shared problem, and the private sector and foundations are part of the answer.”

The Build the Teacher Pipeline Initiative is supported by donors, including $250,000 from the Hearst Foundation, as well as other donors who asked the College not to disclose details. Supplemental to the four-prong plan, the Charles L. Touhey Foundation has committed to provide tuition gap funding to encourage more students of color to enter the pipeline, recognizing that diverse educator voices are critical for all of our children.

The College is asking alumni and corporate and community supporters to consider contributing to the initiative to extend its impact.

“Saint Rose believes the teacher shortage isn’t just a crisis for the state to solve. This is a shared problem, and the private sector, foundations, and our generous alumni are part of the answer,” White says. “We are so grateful to Charles Touhey, to the Hearst Foundation, and to our anonymous donors for helping Saint Rose address the needs of the times in this way.”

The initiative also addresses the pipeline problem through three additional strategies: Providing graduate scholarships for career changers, moving to more fl exible delivery options for its education master’s degree programs, and creating relevant professional development to combat educator burnout based on a May 2022 survey of nearly 700 educators statewide by Saint Rose and Prescience Associates, a market research firm.

“This shortage has been caused for a couple of reasons,” says Dr. Christina Pfister, professor of education and co-chair of the teacher education department at Saint Rose. “In the past, it was harder to get a teaching position, so many who were interested in teaching chose other careers. Now, with many experienced teachers retiring and fewer mid-career teachers in the profession, there are openings in many schools.”

Bad press about teaching has also discouraged students from the field, she says.

Angelina MaloneyMaloney, who is a member of the New York State Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching, says she never wants to see New York have to resort to extreme measures to address the crisis as they have in other states. For example, New Mexico deployed members of the National Guard to serve as substitute teachers.

But for some students, the cost of higher education and the requirement in New York that teachers hold a master’s degree in order to qualify for professional certification keeps them from entering the field. Recently, New York State relaxed the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) requirement for those who want to enter a master’s degree program in education in order to qualify for initial certification. Having to take the GRE sometimes dissuaded career-changers, who may be many years removed from from sitting in a college classroom.

Maloney has also watched districts with more resources lure away teachers at less-resourced ones, leading to competition between the schools for a limited teacher pool.

To spread the word about the initiative, the College has launched a television commercial – featuring Saint Rose alumni who are teachers – that has aired in the Capital Region, Central New York, Southern Tier, and Hudson Valley, as well as via streaming services in the New York City area. The campaign also includes an aggressive digital advertising campaign, Capital Region transit ads, outreach to school counselors, and direct outreach to prospective students.

The day before the initiative was announced. White also held a special session for school leaders statewide to brief them on the eff ort. And, the College will ask its more than 28,000 alumni, including CITE program graduates, to help with word of mouth.

The success of the initiative is important to the field.

“Frequently I get calls or emails from principals and superintendents asking if I have anyone I could recommend for an interview for a teaching position,” Pfister says. “Unfortunately, I often have to say most of our recent graduates either have teaching positions already or were undergraduates and are now continuing right into a graduate program full time. Hopefully, we can change that.”

Click here to learn more about this initiative.

Support this initiative and make your donation today.

By Jennifer Gish

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