Philly schools welcome 800 new hires at annual orientation as Pennsylvania faces teacher shortages

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Eight hundred teachers and counselors received a warm welcome when they arrived at the School of the Future campus in Philadelphia Wednesday for new hire orientation.

The School District of Philadelphia officials welcomed first time teachers and new staff with loud bells, applause and cheers as the All-City drumline played to the crowd.

The district said the orientation program will help new hires receive timely & relevant information as it relates to their new positions.

In a release, the district wrote “it also provides the District with a unique opportunity to build a solid foundation and establish a strong work culture to build a network of support and professional relationships within its newest cohort of teachers and counselors.”

As of October 2023, school districts across Pennsylvania reported 2,000 teacher vacancies and another 6,500 are teaching on emergency certificates.

According to a Pew research report released this spring, the shortage of teachers and staff continues to impact schools nationwide.

The report cites teachers in particular are stressed about their jobs and claim poverty, absenteeism and mental health are problems they face at their schools.

Last year, Sam Weber attended the orientation and said he left his job in corporate America to teach because he wanted to do more for the community and saw the need for more teachers in Philly.

“I am a career changer. I did not know I was going to be a teacher, but I realized that I wanted to do something that really gives back that I feel passionate about,” said Weber at last year’s orientation.

PA NeedsTeachers, a statewide coalition led by Teach Plus and the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), has been leading efforts to alleviate the teacher shortage crisis.

Research compiled by Dr. Ed Fuller on behalf of PA Needs Teachers states that the statewide teacher shortage is more acute in special education, math and science, with underserved rural and urban areas suffering disproportionately.

An added concern is the teacher attrition rate.

“The preliminary analysis of the attrition rate across the Commonwealth is low and approximately 8,300 teachers – 6.6% of the teacher workforce – left the profession between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school year,” Fuller reported.

This represents an improvement over the previous year, when 9,587 teachers – 7.7% of all teachers – left the workforce. However, Fuller said it still represents substantially more teachers than the number of new, fully-certified teachers entering the profession annually.

“Teacher attrition varies significantly across the commonwealth and among teacher subgroups, with charter school teachers, teachers of color, and male teachers leaving the profession at higher rates than other subgroups. Attrition is also higher among teachers teaching in more economically disadvantaged schools and schools with higher percentages of teachers of color,”  Fuller said.

Laura Boyce, Pennsylvania executive director of Teach Plus also compiled the report and said that while the teacher shortage is a statewide issue, “by almost every measure, the crisis is most extreme in Philadelphia.”

“Philadelphia has a high level of attrition and needs 2,015 additional qualified teachers to have a highly qualified, adequately staffed and diverse teacher workforce,” she added.

The district hopes this week’s orientation will teach new hires best practices on how to manage classrooms, students and build a network of support within each other in hope of keeping the teachers engaged and prepared for their new positions.

New hire orientation continues through Tuesday and the first day of school is Monday, August 26.