Administrator’s post about teacher shortages goes viral. Wake says it’s not that bad.
A Wake County assistant principal’s social media post about the severity of the teacher shortage has gone viral, but the school district says the situation is not as dire as the post claimed.
In a July 20 Facebook post, assistant principal Katie Demcio Jones wrote that it would be “delusional” to think they’ll find highly qualified people in the next 3.5 weeks to fill 967 Wake County teacher openings. Before she deleted her post Monday afternoon, it had generated 4,900 shares, more than 2,000 reactions and 896 comments.
“Get ready,” Demcio Jones wrote. “The shortage is real, it WILL impact kids, and it will get worse before it gets better. And, for the love, please do better than to berate your schools remaining teachers or administrators for the position we’re in. You did it to yourselves.”
Lisa Luten, a Wake school spokeswoman, said Demcio Jones had counted all the listings on AppliTrack, the site where Wake’s job postings are listed. But Luten said AppliTrack still lists jobs that have been filled but not yet removed from the site.
Luten said the district’s last figure for vacancies was 400 as of late June. She said they don’t have current figures but that principals have been hiring people over the past month.
Demcio Jones did not immediately return requests Monday for comment from The News & Observer.
Schools hiring for this fall
Last school year, schools in Wake and across the nation faced staffing shortages that forced the remaining workers to do more to fill the gap. Now schools are hiring for the new school year amid concerns about how many teachers, bus drivers and other school employees will be leaving during the “Great Resignation.”
In this year’s North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions Survey, 7% of teachers said they intend to leave the profession. That compares to 4% in 2020.
Demcio Jones wrote that four teachers had left her school in the last week and that more may also be going.
Demcio Jones wrote that none of the two applicants for the school’s language arts positions were certified teachers. She said one applicant listed experience at the Harris Teeter supermarket deli and as a bartender.
Her school also needs three science teachers. But the assistant principal wrote that it will be hard filling them when pharmaceutical companies pay three times more money.
She later edited the post to add her thanks to the “thousands of parents out there full of love, grace, and patience who have done nothing more than support teachers especially these past two or three years.”
This story was originally published July 25, 2022 at 4:31 PM with the headline "Administrator’s post about teacher shortages goes viral. Wake says it’s not that bad.."
