Enrollment in New York State's teacher education programs has declined by 53% since 2009, according to the New York State Teachers Union.

The New York Teacher Retirement System estimates a third of New York teachers could retire in the next five years and says there are 18 areas suffering from teacher shortages.

In an effort to increase their numbers, many schools are hosting job fairs and working with New York's Department of Education to design a hiring process that can cut down waiting periods of more than a month to a week or two. 

With priority one remaining to keep kids in classrooms, job fairs for substitute positions for teachers, bus drivers and clerical staff are popping up across the state.

“Specifically targeting substitute is really critical so that we continue to have the front line people who we really require every day to be with us so that we can be doing all systems operating," said ESM Superintendent Dr. Donna Desiato.

Timothy Jachim is a substitute teacher applicant certified to teach English to grades 7 through 12. Jachim feels there’s a lot of reasons people aren’t choosing teaching in New York State, including the lengthy application process and arduous certification requirements.

“Some people are getting scared away. I know plenty of people I graduated college with aren't teaching anymore, they just weren't able to start or didn't want to go through the process of getting started with other things. These are some smart people that could have been good teachers, too," said Jachim.

Administrators say they are working with New York State to make the hiring process easier and more attractive to potential candidates.

"They are interested in moving areas where they are, really just to either outdated or areas that are too cumbersome, and we need to streamline them so that we can get applicants and we can recruit, hire, and we can onboard people in a relatively more efficient amount of time," said Dr. Desiato.

The New York State Department of Education says they have implemented and continue to work on policy flexibilities to address the teacher shortages. One of the main things they implented was the emergency COVID-19 certificate.

This allows candidates to go ahead and work for two years in New York State public schools while taking exams for emergency certification. The deadline is September 21, 2022.

Also, there’s more flexibility for incidental teachers who can teaching up to 10 hours a week in subjects outside of their certification and substitute teachers can teach more than 40 days in a school year in one school district.

“One, we have to begin by looking at it and then take the steps that are needed to make it as efficient as it can possibly be. We've seen New York State do that before for us and other areas, so we're pretty confident they'll continue to do so,” said Dr. Desiato.