The American Counseling Association (ACA) is proud to celebrate school counselors and their work in schools across the nation during National School Counseling Week, Feb. 5 – 9, 2024. School counselors today are at the center of the problem-solving process and can help safeguard the mental and emotional well-being of students and parents alike.

A new study exploring the ever-changing landscape of workers’ experiences and perspectives around mental health, stigma, and work has uncovered new insights about how workplace mental health has changed from before, during, and after the pandemic. The findings show that mental health isn’t improving in the U.S., but there are some new bright spots, too. Workers are demonstrating greater awareness around mental health at work and are looking beyond traditional benefits and the latest technologies. What they increasingly want is what the research has always shown works: mentally healthier cultures. The authors break down what employees need and — increasingly expect — from their employers when it comes to mental health support and offer several strategies for leaders to foster sustainable, mentally healthy cultures.

The Clark County School District in Nevada, which has 2,000 vacant positions, is the fifth-largest district in America

The state education board voted Tuesday to amend licensing regulations in an effort to address the statewide teacher shortage.

The amendments create an easier pathway for already-licensed teachers to be able to teach special education and English as a second language and create a new license for pre-K teachers of students with disabilities. The board also voted to create a new provisional license for school nurses, who are also understaffed in Massachusetts districts.

Heading into the 2022-2023 school year, 48 percent of district leaders in the Northeast felt they were understaffed, according to the U.S. Department of Education. In Boston, there were about 900 positions available — including 219 teacher vacancies, CBS reported.

Teacher shortages lead to stretched resources and diminished individualized attention for students. This Spotlight will help you uncover what principals look for when hiring teachers; learn how establishing a supportive culture can help retain teachers; dissect the key reasons why teachers say they left the profession; examine how some states are making it easier to become a substitute teacher; and more.

THE STATE EDUCATION board is exploring new ways to address the statewide teacher shortage through more “flexible” regulations for specialized educators.

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) — A team of Nebraska researchers is creating a program to help develop and retain special education teachers amid a massive shortage nationwide.

Right now, 98% of our country’s school districts don’t have enough, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

As schools try to rebound from pandemic-era teacher turnover, some educators and families say they’re especially worried about the future of special education. A severe shortage of qualified instructors in that field has left thousands of students, teachers and families in free fall.

Imagine trying to build a house with only a third of the construction crew that’s needed.

Or imagine you’re holding an event, with a ballroom filled with guests, but only a third of the waiters and catering staff showed up.

What this report finds: The pandemic exacerbated a preexisting and long-standing shortage of teachers. The shortage is particularly acute for certain subject areas and in some geographic locations. It is especially severe in schools with high shares of students of color or students from low-income families. The shortage is not a function of an inadequate number of qualified teachers in the U.S. economy. Simply, there are too few qualified teachers willing to work at current compensation levels given the increasingly stressful environment facing teachers.

In a recent EPI report investigating the national teacher shortage, we documented a large and growing number of teaching vacancies, which we linked to poor compensation and highly stressful working conditions.

Teacher turnover hits new highs across the U.S.

The data is in: More teachers than usual exited the classroom after last school year, confirming longstanding fears that pandemic-era stresses would prompt an outflow of educators. That’s according to a Chalkbeat analysis of data from eight states — the most comprehensive accounting of recent teacher turnover to date.

Many districts across the country are grappling with teacher shortages large and small. Limited federal data show, as of October 2022, 45% of public schools had at least one teacher vacancy; that's after the school year had already begun. And schools that serve high-poverty neighborhoods and/or a "high-minority student body" were more likely to have vacancies.

While supply and demand for fully qualified special education teachers has ebbed and flowed for nearly 30 years, demand has consistently outpaced supply nationally.1 These shortages imperil the opportunity for students with disabilities to receive an appropriate, individualized educational program, as guaranteed by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

The teacher shortage is nothing new, but the urgency of needing to accelerate every student’s literacy skills while short staffed, is. Many teachers are leaving or considering leaving the profession, while fewer and fewer are joining the ranks.