The Storm is Approaching – Untrained Teachers Entering the Field with Increased Transparency Expectations

A perfect storm is mounting in this post-COVID time with a continued decline of trust in public education, rising expectations for districts and teachers to provide more transparency, and decreased support for central administration.

How will district leaders onboard new staff, maintain a curriculum portal, and ensure that every child has access to the same quality resources? Districts are also faced with supporting inexperienced, untrained teachers, providing students with equitable access to quality curriculum, and keeping up with ever-changing course standards and expectations.

As a former school district superintendent and curriculum director, I know keeping resources up-to-date and altering courses based on state curriculum revisions is a heavy lift, especially for districts with limited curriculum staff. Tracking changes and analyzing student performance data are critical for monitoring student progress and planning for instruction. Unfortunately, the burden of curriculum writing is often shifted to teachers, which requires additional time for planning and developing content. This can take teachers’ focus away from caring for students and delivering high quality instruction.

Coordinating and clearly communicating curriculum revisions throughout the school year presents an additional challenge. Capturing and publishing these changes can become a full-time job, especially when you consider 60+ courses at the elementary level and over 200+ at the secondary level. Gathering and maintaining live documentation can also lead to increased frustration with accuracy among teachers, the district, and the public.

Another storm that has been lurking on the horizon for the past 10 years is the lack of quality teachers in the pipeline. Fewer students are entering the teaching profession, as is seen by the decline in job fair attendance and applications for open positions. Recently, news of closing teacher preparation programs due to declining enrollment is further evidence of the need. In order to bridge the gap, many states are turning to uncommon practices. Texas has utilized the National Guard to help districts, while Arizona and Indiana have passed legislation stating that teachers can be hired as apprentices while in teacher preparation programs, with no degree or experience.

District and campus administrators bear the responsibility of ensuring these inexperienced teachers are trained on safety and security, proper student relationships, and the social and emotional needs of students, while at the same time instructing on instructional pedagogy, lesson planning, and content knowledge.

How will districts that lack adequate staff provide effective mentorship and curriculum training to onboard these new hires and prepare them to meet student academic needs?

The reality is less central office support, higher curriculum expectations, and less qualified and trained teachers will lead to increased teacher burnout and could significantly widen the instructional disparity in our classrooms. It is critical that districts establish systems and processes to centralize resources like scope and sequence documents and model lessons, as well as make it easy to publish live curriculum to the public. This will help administrators and teachers track the alignment of content and compare with student performance to analyze the needs for curriculum revisions.

Embarc replaces folders, spreadsheets, and Google Drive repositories with an easy-to-use-and-adjust system that keeps curriculum accessible, current, and transparent for the public.

With one click, you can publish the district-approved curriculum and easily adjust the scope and sequence annually, saving hours of time for central administration and curriculum teams. Embarc can be customized to support district initiatives and assists both new and experienced teachers with centralized resources from textbooks, links, Google documents, and other static or web tools. This ensures that district-adopted materials are utilized and accessible by all users in delivering quality instruction.

>>> Learn more about the Embarc’s new Google integration!

Let us show you how we will support your district's work and head off any storms on the horizon!