The Haines Borough School District is looking to fill four full-time teaching positions next year as it continues to struggle against a national and statewide teacher shortage.
Superintendent Roy Getchell said he is beginning to consider international applicants.
“It would be generous to say we get 10 percent of the applications we used to,” Getchell said. “The majority of those ten percent are usually from out of the country.”
Getchell has been the superintendent for five years.
The school will lose its high school math and science teachers, K-12 art teacher, and fifth-grade teacher (for one year). The district continues to search for an assistant principal, a position open since last summer. Getchell said he expects even more vacancies in the future.
“Your administrative pool comes from your teacher force,” Getchell said. “They become the assistant principals, principals, special education directors, superintendents. As that number of teachers decreases, so will the number of everything else.”
In 2022, Getchell told the CVN he has received increased applications from the Philippines. Several communities in Alaska have begun to hire teachers from the Philippines. In 2022, KTOO reported over half of the Kuspuk School District’s teaching staff was from the Philippines. Chatham School District has also hired internationally, Getchell said.
Under visa requirements, foreign teachers must leave the country after five years. Getchell said despite these conditions, he is considering hiring internationally.
“I would rather have a great teacher for a year than a poor one for five,” Getchell said. “We’ll just take things as they come. I’ve also learned that life happens. Sometimes people will think they’re going to be here forever and they’re not here very long. Some people come here for the short term and they don’t ever leave.”
Getchell said he suspects low pay, retirement benefits, and the lack of ferry service are the main factors driving the issue. The CVN previously reported that Haines teachers were among the lowest paid in the state. Of the 54 school districts in Alaska, Haines teachers are among the lowest paid. Haines ranks 49th out of 54 for the highest paid salaries according to an NEA-Alaska (NEA) salary comparison survey. It takes 25 years, based on the district’s step chart, to make that highest level of pay, longer than any other district requires to reach salary caps. Based on the 2021 salary survey, in Haines a teacher with a bachelor’s degree can make about $79,000 after 25 years in the district whereas in Wrangell, a teacher could make about $93,000 after 16 years.
New teachers also don’t receive social security benefits or state-defined pension plans in Alaska. Retirement contributions are matched by the district after five years, leading many teachers to abandon their positions and “cash out” their retirement at this time, Getchell said.
“They get to have the Alaskan adventure, pull their money out; they’re not penalized and they’re gone.”
The school is set to negotiate with the local teacher’s union next month. Getchell said without more support from the state, trying to compete for teachers is “putting both our hands behind our back trying to do it.” The base student allocation paid to schools has not increased since 2016.
“We have a very positive relationship (with Haines Education Association) and I’m very hopeful we’re going to have a positive outcome,” Getchell said. “But I’ll tell you, it would be a whole lot easier for everybody in that process if the state would throw us a lifeline.”
Former Haines teacher Mark Fontenot said that besides salary, accessibility, and retirement, turnover may be worsened by high cost of living, lack of housing, winter and weather conditions.
“The remoteness of Haines, for being on the highway system, it’s an isolating place,” Fontenot said. “The decline of the ferry system is a huge factor that makes Haines less accessible. And with climate factors, the thing I’m enjoying most about retirement is that I’m not there in these long, dark days. It’s not the cold or the snow that made winter difficult psychologically. It’s just dark. A lot of dark.”
Fontenot also said that an unreliable ferry system made it difficult for teachers to travel over breaks throughout the school year. He added that students traveling for extracurricular activities are out of class much longer than students in the Lower 48.
“One of the things that made teaching in Haines a challenge was how much school kids miss for activities and travel,” Fontenot said. “I would feel like a correspondence teacher keeping your stay-behind students in sync with students traveling. It’s a challenge. These kids miss weeks at a time to go do what they do. I don’t disparage it at all, it enriches their education to do that travel.”
Art teacher Giselle Miller also announced her resignation. Miller worked for the district for four years and said accessibility was one factor in her decision to leave.
“Access is a huge part of it and feeling unable to go anywhere in the winter time,” Miller said. “Yes, we can go somewhere in the summer during those two months off to travel, but that’s the wonderful time when people want to be here (…) It’s a hard thing to continually feel like I can’t make it to family events or down South because I can’t get out.”
Miller also said that feeling “stretched thin over all grade levels” influenced her decision. She said she hopes to find more work-life balance, as well as the independence to travel and to work on her art.
“For me, it’s finding a better work-life balance and not being so stretched to build a strong program,” Miller said. “I do not have the time and energy to be successful for all K-12 grade levels.”
Miller suggested that higher pay, more preparation time, and more personal days would attract young teachers.
Both Miller and Fontenot said teachers typically aren’t attracted to their career for the salary; they do it for the kids.
“There are other jobs that pay more, provide more mental health days, and allow you to walk away in the evenings and separate yourself from the work. But building strong and uplifting relationships with students is why I enjoy teaching,” Miller said in an email.
Getchell said that despite the present circumstances, he is “heartened” by the Haines graduates who have gone to college to become teachers.
“My hope is they go to college and when they come back and want to be a teacher and make a difference, they do it here,” Getchell said.
Getchell said 400 positions across Alaskan schools were unfilled at the start of the school year. Nationally, more than half of the country’s public schools reported understaffing at the start of the school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Sixty-nine percent said they simply did not receive enough applicants.