Young teachers talk about Indiana school staff shortages

Alyson Baugh just entered her final semester of undergraduate studies at Ball State University, the largest teacher preparation provider in Indiana, according to Ball State’s Teachers College website. Like many other education majors in her shoes, she has worries as she enters the transitional period between schooling and her teaching career.

Baugh, a fourth-year English education major, has wanted to be a teacher since childhood. While she’d loved reading and writing all through grade school, what gave her the push to pursue teaching was her eighth-grade English teacher.

While she desired to be a teacher for years, Baugh said she’d most likely only teach for a couple of years before shifting out of the field and becoming a curriculum writer. Besides apprehensions around the planned and “strict” nature of teaching, Baugh was driven away from her original career plan due to larger concerns.

“Teachers are very underappreciated and overworked,” Baugh said via email. “Teachers are responsible for hundreds of kids over at least six periods … usually upwards of thirty at a time. On top of that, teachers are underpaid and are told to teach an impossible load of curriculum in a limited amount of time.”

Education Resource Strategies, a national nonprofit that helps with resource management in school systems, found that 23 percent of teachers left their school during the 2022-23 school year — a higher percentage than pandemic rates (20 percent). The flux of current teacher retention begs the question: Why are they really leaving?

The National Education Association (NEA), which represents nearly 3 million educators, published a study in 2022 that unveiled the concerns of teachers. Key concerns identified by NEA’s research might answer why Indiana, among other states, is seeing staff shortages.

The 2022 NEA member survey found that 55 percent of educators across the nation indicated plans to leave the profession earlier than they expected. Those surveyed cited burnout and stress as a “serious problem.” And due to the fact over half a million educators exited the public school system post-COVID-19 pandemic, 74 percent of NEA members stated they’ve had to fill the gaps left behind by former colleagues.

“Teachers are essentially being set up to fail,” Baugh said. “… It’s no surprise people don’t want to go into the profession just to be underappreciated and overworked and underpaid. And the ones who do choose to teach often get burnt out from the sheer amount of work they’re doing.”

Taylie Heady, an elementary education major at Purdue University in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has already decided in her second year of school that she won’t be staying in the state post-graduation.

“One concern I have about my profession is the pay, I will admit,” Heady said via email. “I believe that, if teachers were only expected to show up at 7:00 a.m. and leave at 3:00 p.m., the pay and benefits would be enough. However, many teachers are expected to do work before and after school in order to facilitate learning in their classrooms.”

From dry-erase markers to hand sanitizer, educators spend upwards of $750 from their own pockets on supplies for students, according to the NEA. It adds up, and Heady said that many teachers “struggle” to make paychecks stretch.

“Most teachers also use their own personal funds within their classrooms,” Heady said. “Because of the hours teachers must spend working outside of the classroom and the money they must spend on their classrooms, teachers should be better compensated.”

At a state level, Indiana is ranked 36th nationally in terms of average teacher salary and 28th in starting salary for teachers, according to NEA data. With an average teacher’s starting salary of $42,735 and the state minimum living wage being $60,485, it doesn’t come as a surprise that a 2024 survey found Marion County educators specified “better pay” as one of the things that would keep them in the teaching professions.

The survey, organized by the nonprofit RISE Indy, drew responses from nearly 575 public school educators in the greater Indianapolis area.

While nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of respondents felt they were “satisfied” with their workplaces, teachers 34 and younger had a satisfaction rate nine percentage points lower (56 percent).

“I will not be able to live comfortably on a teacher’s paycheck, and I will likely be paycheck to paycheck,” Baugh said. “That’s also just factoring in myself. It would be even harder if I chose to have a family.”

Dea Bell, assistant superintendent for Muncie Community Schools, said that educators feel most supported when they are “paid a decent wage” and “have their concerns addressed.”

“Many young professionals believe ‘the grass is greener’ outside Indiana,” Bell said. “If we provide a good living wage, enjoyable working conditions and opportunities for advancement, then I believe we can keep a lot of young teachers from leaving the state.”

As of Sept. 29, there were 2,708 unfilled positions through the Indiana Educator Job Board. Nearly half of those were teacher positions with an “until filled” deadline.

“There’s no singular reason [why] K-12 education is struggling to fill openings — it’s a combination of things,” Bell said. “Probably near the top of the list are low pay and lack of respect.”

Beyond the scope of salary and benefits, recent policy changes at state, local and district levels — as well as the autonomy of teachers in their classrooms — have also affected overall job security.

Only 13 percent of teachers surveyed by RISE Indy agreed that recent policy changes made them feel secure. 56 percent of teachers do not agree that changes in policy have increased their sense of security.

In 2023, Gov. Eric Holcomb signed Indiana House Bill (HB) 1447, which allows parents and community members to request books be banned from school libraries that they deem “obscene” or “harmful to minors.”

Current Indiana Code outlines material that is “harmful” to minors contains nudity, sexual content, etc.; appeals to the “prurient interest in sex” of minors; is “patently offensive to prevailing standards” in the adult community with respect to what is “suitable matter” for minors; and is considered, as a whole, lacking “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors.”

While state laws already banned the aforementioned materials from being accessible, schools can no longer claim legal protection under the reasoning of “educational purposes” when sharing certain materials in classrooms due to HB 1447.

Baugh believes politics shouldn’t “rule the classroom.” For her, the classroom is a space where students should learn about the complexities of life.

“We cannot fully protect and shield children from the world they live [in],” Baugh said. “We can teach them about it and prepare them … We won’t prepare them for the world by hiding them from it. In a similar vein, teachers aren’t even allowed to talk about certain issues, such as race or gender, in some places. I believe the best thing we can do is teach kids about these issues but do it in an age-appropriate way.”

Delaney Shoemaker, a third-year math education and data analytics double major at Ball State, worries about her future as a teacher. But even with uneasiness at the forefront of her mind, she refuses to “just roll over and quit advocating for more support.”

HB 1447 was introduced during Shoemaker’s senior year of high school. She remembers reading over the bill and feeling “appalled,” leading to her having conversations with the teachers at her school before leaving for college.

“It was clear that people who had little understanding of how education worked were attempting to assert that they actually knew better than the teachers who have spent their entire careers and educations becoming masters in their field,” Shoemaker said. “Policies like this tell teachers, ‘We don’t trust you’ … It’s insulting and demeaning. I ended up at the statehouse on the day of the bill’s hearing and was told by my state representative that we were wasting our time.”

Shoemaker said that, for current and future teachers like herself, the attitude of policymakers often makes them feel like they’re unheard.

“Not only was our esteem in our careers being steamrolled, but we were even being overlooked as mere citizens worthy of a say in our government,” Shoemaker said. “More people than not love and support our educators, even if policies and cultures don’t always reflect that.”

Even with the volatile state of teaching, Shoemaker tries to remember that, for her, teaching is more than a career but “a calling.” She said that support on all fronts is what will motivate teachers to “stay another day.”

“Teachers are underappreciated and underpaid by many loud and powerful people, but I’ve never met a person who couldn’t list a handful of teachers who made them who they are today,” Shoemaker said.

Contact Kate Farr via email at kate.farr@bsu.edu.