Warren County School District Superintendent Amy Stewart remembers a time when there were hundreds of applicants for some teaching positions in the district.

Now, there are positions that the district cannot fill with certificated teachers.

It is not a Warren County problem. There is a widespread shortage of teachers.

“This is bigger than us,” Stewart told the school board. “This is national.”

And it is particularly problematic in rural areas, Stewart said, citing a letter from the Pennsylvania Association for Rural and Small Schools (PARSS) which included research from the Penn State College of Education Center for Evaluation and Education Policy Analysis.

“They’re talking about how this is even more difficult on rural schools,” she said.

“Pennsylvania is facing a severe teacher staffing challenge, although the severity varies by school subject area, region of the state, and school characteristics,” according to the center. “There are teacher preparation program ‘deserts’ in Pennsylvania that exacerbate the challenges faced by rural schools.”

The shortages are across the board.

“The need for new and well-prepared teachers is most acute in the following areas: special education, English Language Learner, foreign language, general elementary, English language arts, mathematics, and science,” according to the center’s research.

“When they put elementary education on the high needs list, you know something is really off,” Stewart said.

Like districts everywhere, the district has hired numerous people who are not certified teachers to go into the classrooms and teach.

“For the first time in the history of the commonwealth, the number of newly certified teacher was less than the number of teaching positions filled by teacher on emergency permits,” according to the research.

The district is not downplaying the important roles those new teachers are playing, but the center said, “Research suggests that students suffer academically when taught by a teacher on an emergency permit.”

The days of seeing 150 applications for an elementary teacher position are far in the past.

“From 2010-2011 to 2020-2021, the number of initial in-state certificates awarded declined by 67 percent,” the research said.

According to the center, the ratio of new instructional licenses issued in 2020-2021 to the number of new teachers hired in the same subject area was down to about two. “The greater the ratio, the greater the supply of teachers, and, all other things equal, the larger the potential applicant pool.”

“By 2020-2021, only the supply-demand ratios for elementary and social studies positions were greater than two newly certified individuals to one beginning teacher hired,” according to the center’s research. “For five of the nine major subject areas — secondary mathematics, secondary science, foreign language, fine arts, and physical/health education — the supply-demand ratio declined to 1.1 licenses per one beginning teacher or lower.

The ratios “strongly suggest the pool of prospective teachers from which districts hire beginning teachers has become too small to meet the demand for beginning teachers,” the center said.

While both the pool of teachers and the number of public-school students in the state are shrinking, the number of teaching positions has grown.

“From 2018-2019 to 2012-2022, the number of teacher full-time equivalents has increased 2.6 percent,” according to the center. “The increase in the number of teaching… positions has placed further stress on the ability of districts to fill all available positions with well-qualified applicants.”

To help address the roots of the problem — stagnant salaries leading to effective drop in salaries compared to inflation, negative perceptions about working conditions, and possibly the difficulty teachers had in finding jobs in the state in decades past — the center recommended some possible solutions. “Adopt teacher pay raises, create teacher scholarship and loan forgiveness programs, implement a statewide teacher working conditions survey, fund a statewide advertising campaign to elevate perceptions of the teacher profession, among others.”