Oklahoma State Department of Education approves emergency certifications
Emergency-certified teachers are a temporary solution to the deficit of teachers.
Oklahoma school districts are resorting to emergency certification for teacher candidates as a result of the ongoing teacher shortage. The main challenge is that emergency-certified teachers are not a permanent solution to the deficit of teachers.
Dana Ezell, the Jenks Public Schools chief human resources officer, detailed how urgent the need for emergency-certified teachers is for schools.
“At Jenks Public Schools, the need for emergency certified teachers has continued to grow. Ten years ago, the district would not have considered a candidate who did not hold certification; today we have nine emergency certified teachers as well as 11 adjunct teachers,” Ezell said.
The Oklahoma State Department of Education has to receive an application from the district and review the need for an emergency certification for one school year. If an emergency-certified teacher would like to earn the standard certification of teaching, they are given resources by OSDE to pursue alternative pathways towards certification.
In 2008, the Great Recession caused the economy to plummet, decreasing the funding for public education. Fast-forward to 2018, educators gathered at the Oklahoma State Capitol to protest the lack of funding for education, low pay for teachers, and overcrowded classrooms. The 2018 Oklahoma teacher’s walkout shined a light on the hardships educators continue to face in schools.
From a National Public Radio segment in May 2021, reporter Robby Korth found that more than 4,000 of the 45,000 estimated Oklahoma teachers leave their teaching positions per year. With that estimated number of teachers leaving in Oklahoma, it results in a lower number of new hires in the profession.
With fewer new hires available in education, emergency certifications are used to fill the open teaching positions in schools. When an emergency-certified teacher is teaching for the first time, support from their administration and coworkers is essential to make them feel welcome.
“The first year of teaching can be overwhelming for any teacher. Emergency teachers have a bigger challenge because they most likely have not had an internship teaching experience, have not had coursework in classroom management, and have the added stress of navigating the teacher certification process while teaching,” Ezell said.
Any support from school districts and administrators is vital in order to make the environment at school safe and comfortable. An emergency-certified teacher is balancing a new job with little experience and training like a standard-certified teacher would have the opportunity to complete.
John Wheeling, a teacher who is currently working on his emergency certification, is an English teacher at Star Spencer High School in Spencer, Oklahoma. Wheeling earned a bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education in 1995, but did not take his certification exams.
“I will probably only be in the position [at Star Spencer] through May, but I am enjoying the [emergency certification] process. It is a very challenging school, but I am starting to get to know the kids. The process is much faster for emergency certification. There are a lot of steps in the normal process that are skipped in the emergency process,” Wheeling said.
Approving emergency certifications for school districts is not the long-term solution to the teacher shortage in Oklahoma. Each emergency-certified teacher is simply filling in the gap for school districts with a scarce amount of candidates.
“Emergency certification is not what is best for everyone. It would be better to pay teachers more and to lure more teachers into the profession, but with things as they are, emergency certification is necessary,” Wheeling said.
Improving the quality of care that educators receive is crucial to retain teachers in schools. Several factors such as low salaries and a decrease in state funding for education play a role in the Oklahoma teacher shortage and the need for emergency-certified teachers.
“Emergency certificates [is a] short-term solution to long-term problems. The long-term solution is to revive teaching as a respected, revered, and rewarding career option,” Ezell said.
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