Bob Chikos has been a special education teacher at Crystal Lake Central High School for 16 years. He mostly teaches students who have learning disabilities, he said, and also co-teaches some English and math classes in which students who have special needs are integrated with students who don’t.
Chikos said it’s great that the education system is getting better at identifying children who have special needs and getting them the help they need, but his concern is that there aren’t many people who can provide that help.
“I have a few people in my family who have special needs, and the help they’ve gotten has been essential in them becoming productive citizens,” Chikos said. “My concern is they would not have access to that, the same that my family members have had to become productive citizens.”
Labor shortages are not unique to the educator workforce, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, but Chikos said the shortages aren’t as black-and-white as some people may think.
“A lot of times, we hear headlines saying there’s a teacher shortage and it makes it sound like it affects all places equally, and it really doesn’t,” Chikos said. “It affects certain disciplines more than others. The vast majority of vacancies are in special education and for bilingual teachers. It’s also more prevalent in rural areas, more disadvantaged areas throughout the state.”
This was among the findings in “The State of Our Educator Pipeline 2023: Strengths, Opportunities and the Early Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic,” a report released in October by education watchdog group Advance Illinois.
Besides rural areas, teacher vacancies “disproportionately affect schools serving Black and Latinx students as well as students from low-income households,” according to the report.
Kimako Patterson, chief of staff for the Illinois State Board of Education, said at an Advance Illinois event about the report that teacher shortages are an “equity issue.” There are about 3,550 teacher vacancies across the state, Patterson said. Of 852 school districts, 79% reportedly have at least one vacancy, and 60% of minority students are in the schools with those vacancies, she said.
“Every student in this state deserves an excellent education regardless of where they live, and that’s just not occurring to date,” Patterson said. “Our imperative is to ensure that whether you’re in south Cook, west Cook, central Illinois, Chicago, wherever you are in this state, we need to be able to provide the absolute best education and resources for every single student.”
As one of the advisers for the report, Chikos said he doesn’t see a shortage of educators in his own district, Community High School District 155 in McHenry County. In fact, he said that when teachers come to work at his district, it can put a burden on the districts they are leaving.
He said his district pays “significantly better than a lot of the districts around us,” but even then administrators tell him they’re getting fewer applicants.
District 155 is “considered a destination district,” where an educator wants to end up during their career, he said.
According to the report, Illinois had seen an increase in the number of teachers, assistant principals and paraprofessionals working in public pre-K-12 schools in all types of districts from the 2017-18 school year to 2021-22. Student-to-teacher ratios have gotten better, creating smaller class sizes that benefit students, especially in earlier years, the report said.
Paraprofessionals provide support for teachers and students while working under a licensed teacher, such as helping manage a classroom. Chikos said he advocates for paraprofessionals to become teachers, but he knows there are barriers, such as unpaid student teaching requirements.
Paraprofessionals who are already getting paid “very little” but want to become teachers know they might not get a paycheck for a semester or so while student teaching, and “that keeps them off, especially if they have a family to take care of,” Chikos said.
Enrollment in teacher preparation programs has increased in Illinois, with a slightly larger percentage of candidates also enrolling in special education programs, according to the report. In these early stages of the educator workforce pipeline, the report said diversity is increasing as well. Those enrolled in teacher preparation programs and even newly hired teachers are “much more diverse,” which makes for a “promising future,” the report said.
Latino representation has grown in Illinois at every stage of the pipeline, from student teaching and preparation programs to newly hired teachers and those with years of experience, but getting Black teachers has been more difficult, the report said.
“The teacher shortage is like a food shortage,” Chikos said. “Some people can afford whatever organic, free-range, grass-fed food they want. Most of us get what we need, but comparison shop. And some are chronically hungry. Likewise, some districts can select from hundreds of applicants for every position, most get enough to staff most positions, and some cannot find or retain personnel on an annual basis.”
