EDUCATION

Teacher shortage in Providence persists despite bonus spending but there are bright spots

An Annenberg Institute analysis shows PPSD has struggled to attract and retain teachers. Are bonuses helping?

Amy Russo
The Providence Journal
  • Providence schools are struggling to retain teachers
  • Diversity goals under the turnaround plan are unlikely to be met
  • High-need positions averaging just four applicants

The Providence Public School District is still struggling to attract enough applicants and retain them, with interest limited in jobs serving high-needs students, a new Brown University report shows.

The Annenberg Institute analysis, released Wednesday, states that while there hasn't been a mass exodus of teachers, the district is losing more teachers than it attracts. Prior to the pandemic, the opposite was true.

The institute reported that prior to the current school year, "40 teachers moved from PPSD to other districts (about 15 more than pre-pandemic levels), while 22 teachers entered PPSD from other RI districts (about 10 fewer than pre-pandemic levels)."

The district has already attempted to draw in new hires with thousands of dollars in bonuses as a teacher shortage persists, even looking in Puerto Rico for bilingual teachers, and advertising a $6,000 bonus for their relocation. It's tough to measure exactly how much that may have helped ease the crisis.

"I think it's hard to know what the situation would be without the incentives. Maybe it would be the same. Maybe it would be worse," said John Papay, the institute's interim director and an associate professor of education and economics. "I think that the context that we are in in the nation now [is] around the educator workforce, concerns about educator well-being. You hear stories of unprecedented staffing shortages across the nation as folks are coming out of the pandemic."

PPSD spokesman Nick Domings said the district has given out more than 400 bonuses to help recruit teachers in high-impact roles, and contended that the incentives have helped to fill jobs for which it is hard to hire.

"We provide a survey to candidates once they accept a job with PPSD," Domings said. "Since the bonus program launched, over 30% of respondents have listed that incentives were among the conditions or benefits that most attracted them to Providence."

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Few applicants for high-needs positions

Making hiring tougher is a lack of many options when it comes to candidates. While the institute's data shows that elementary generalist positions and teaching jobs in English, social studies and the humanities draw upwards of eight applicants on average, not as many candidates are applying for jobs involving students with higher needs.

Special education jobs and some positions serving multilingual learners are averaging roughly four applicants per spot. However, Papay said there are "many more" bilingual teaching positions in Providence than certain other districts.

"So the sort of challenge of recruiting staff to serve all these positions is potentially compounded," he added. "But I think there's also the open question of how are folks feeling in schools? What's the perception of Providence as a place to come work? What's the climate and culture in school buildings?"

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PPSD has tracked the reasons for staff departures by performing exit interviews, finding that the district's culture and climate were cited as negatives by nearly half of people surveyed last fall.

"This is important data, and while we don't believe that this is a uniquely Providence issue, the Superintendent and district leadership are committed to fostering a culture and climate in PPSD that is welcoming, inclusive, and shows educators that they are valued and respected," Domings said.

Overall, since August 2022, the district has seen 156 resignations, 10 retirements and 80 hires, Domings said. But expect retirements to rise. According to the report, a quarter of PPSD's teacher workforce is within five years of retirement age, whereas in the rest of the state, it's closer to one fifth.

Maribeth Calabro, head of the Providence Teachers Union, said it's "not shocked by the numbers as we have been sounding the alarm for several years."

She also wants the union to be given a role in analyzing the data and the reasons for staffing struggles.

"We know this is happening, our students feel it, and we feel it our collective foci should be on working together the understand the why and develop actionable next steps to getting to solutions," Calabro said.

Falling behind on diversity goals

To get on par with diversity goals under the turnaround plan, PPSD will need to start attracting more teachers of color. According to the report, educators of color represent just under 22% of the district's teacher workforce, which is diversifying at less than half a percentage point per year.

Under the turnaround plan, the district had aimed to boost diversity to 33% by the 2024-2025 school year.

Kate Donohue, the institute's senior manager of research and partnerships, who helped to author the report along with Papay and others, suggested that target was unrealistic.

"The share of teachers of color in the district hasn't moved that much, but that's a really hard metric to budge," she said, adding that while "districts and states oftentimes set these ambitious goals for diversifying the workforce," it doesn't typically happen that quickly.

A bright spot in the data

Though the institute highlighted ongoing staffing issues within PPSD, the report is not all doom and gloom. The institute points out that while teacher retention has dipped during the state takeover and the pandemic, it's "reasonably high compared to other large urban districts."

In short, things could be worse.

"Rhode Island in general has fairly high teacher retention rates," Papay said. "But turnover in Providence increased much more than it did in other districts, even other urban districts in Rhode Island. And so I think that these two stories, we have to hold them in our heads at the same time. But I think that is a bright spot."