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s the 1960s ended, Pennsylvania teachers still were providing dedicated service to their school districts and students, despite embarrassingly low wages, paltry fringe benefits and, in some cases, not commanding the respect and parental support they deserved.
That unfortunate scenario began to change in 1970, due to the Legislature's passage of Act 195, the Public Employee Relations Act, which paved the way for collective bargaining -- contract negotiations -- that over the years produced increasingly higher pay, better insurance coverage, better retirement benefits and other fringes.
There initially was a troubling downside to Act 195 -- numerous teacher strikes -- but over the years that disruptive problem dissipated.
In 1970, and during most of the half-century that has followed, few people anticipated a negative force that could undermine all that schools and teachers were able to achieve over the years amid contract after contract.
Few, if any educators envisioned a time when classroom education would be disrupted, not only by a health emergency but also by politics, politicians and, in some cases, people led astray about decision-making that should be left to the educational professionals.
Unfortunately, that time has come and people here and across America need to become alarmed over the situation that has evolved and that continues to worsen, probably unbeknownst to many adults.
It is time to think about the many teachers who, no matter how emotionally torn over the decision, already have exited their profession since the start of the pandemic, seeking opportunities in other fields.
Many of them have burned out over toggling between online and classroom instruction, amid the shifting pandemic health and safety protocols and, in some cases, tiring over the second-guessing of parents and others about what is taught in their classes.
"The rate of people quitting jobs in educational services rose more than in any other industry in 2021," according to a Feb. 1 article in the Wall Street Journal.
The article went on to say that "the exodus is worsening a nationwide teacher shortage and proving a boon to hiring managers in industries such as IT services and consulting, hospitals and software development. Teachers' ability to absorb and transmit information quickly, manage stress and multitask are high-demand skills, recruiters and career coaches say."
A number of schools have moved classes to remote learning a couple of days a week due to teacher shortages. Some have had to take more significant steps due to shortages. In some districts, parents don't know if schools will be open from one day to the next.
The results are less in-school learning and larger class sizes.
The situation is dire enough that in mid-December Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf amended the 1949 Public School Code to give schools significant flexibility to hire substitutes. Here are some of those flexibilities:
5 Retired teachers are now eligible to fill teacher vacancies on an emergency or short-term basis.
5 Schools can use eligible college students and recent graduates of education programs to serve as substitute teachers.
5 Educators with active Pennsylvania certificates and those with comparable out-of-state certificates can serve as day-to-day substitutes for 20 days, or longer under certain circumstances.
5 Teachers with inactive certificates may substitute for 180 days instead of 90 days per school year.
5 Individuals who are 25 or older, have at least 60 college credits or 3 years of experience as a paraprofessional, and complete training on classroom management, may serve as "classroom monitors" by delivering preplanned assignments for a teacher.
With so many educators having resigned from their jobs between January and November of last year -- and with substitute-teacher ranks anemic -- many school systems already are hurting and anticipating even more challenging times ahead.
Not good, folks.
The pandemic -- and what many say is an anti-public education atmosphere in Pennsylvania's politics -- has caused teachers to feel they are on a sinking ship.
Until stability returns to the size of teacher ranks, questions that seem destined to linger are: How can Pennsylvania attract more youth to want to become school teachers, and whether the annual (and dwindling) crop of new teachers finishing college will be sufficient to meet classroom needs, especially since some are likely to opt for other opportunities.