Dee Edgerton turns on a clothes dryer in her classroom at West Middle School in Rockford. When students struggle and need a less-crowded space to learn, they’re assigned to her room.
She also cooks with her kids. She does laundry for the school’s sports teams and for some of her students.
“He has nobody to wash his clothes," she said. "He has nobody making sure he has two hot meals. Ms. Dee is making sure [he] gets at least two hot meals a week.”
On top of that, she teaches 8th-grade math. Several West teachers, like Edgerton, say staffing issues are the worst they’ve ever seen.
“469 of our students," she said, "have not had a certified math teacher in two years."
That’s over half of West’s students.
“They're missing foundational skills," said Edgerton. "They don't even know what an exponent was.”
And she says none of their students who need targeted “tier 2” math support get it from a certified math teacher.
“She's not certified to teach math intervention," she said. "Neither am I. That's just a fact. I'm not qualified."
Edgerton says they’re a year behind when they get to high school, and she worries that’s putting them in a position to fail.
It’s not just math either. Special education is also hard to fill. By law, general education classes can only have 30% special education students. West staff say they have at least 18 classes exceeding that threshold -- and many others are close to the limit --- because of a lack of teachers.
A spokesperson for Rockford Public Schools said they can’t comment on staffing at specific schools, but that every student’s placement is decided based on their individual needs. The spokesperson adds the district is committed to providing each student with the right support in the right setting.
So, how does this happen? For one, it is just hard to find qualified math and special ed teachers, especially at a low-income school like West where they won’t make as much money as in the suburbs. Number two, as West counselor Elizabeth Ulrich says, they can’t keep the teachers they have.
“I think it was six teachers that have left since the school year began," said Ulrich. "Some of them, I presume, by choice, and some were dismissed. So, it's been challenging.”
The district’s teacher retention rate is nearly 90%, right in line with the state average. That means over the past few years, 90% of the district’s teachers have stayed. But at West it’s 69%.
When teachers leave, more work and stress falls on the remaining teachers, who then get burned out and leave -- and the cycle continues. Ulrich says on days when several teachers are out sick, they combine multiple classes and put them in the auditorium.
“Let's say it's a 7th-grade math class and maybe a 6th-grade social studies class, then throw in an ELA class or whatever," she said. "That's not really teaching, that's just supervising them. That's babysitting them, and that's them getting behind in their coursework.”
Teachers have to sub for other classes every day and work through planning periods. Teachers like her know there are no easy solutions but they feel like district administrators don’t care.
“We're not accusing anybody of holding back these warehouses full of special ed teachers and bilingual teachers." said Ulrich. "We know that this is a reality, but the fact is they could come into the schools. They could see the hallways. They could see what it's like for themselves.”
Edgerton says she used to see district-level admin substitute teaching or helping coach teachers but, lately, that’s been missing.
She says it’s frustrating because, thanks to their staff and principal, the school’s behavior and attendance have improved. But now that progress is slipping away.
“As much as we don't want to have subs in place of a permanent certified teacher," said Jason Pope, who handles teacher recruitment at Rockford, "I would argue that having a certified teacher that maybe doesn't hold the proper endorsement but has the proper license to be in the classroom is a better alternative than having just a traditional sub in the classroom."
He says they have a $6,000 signing bonus for hard-to-fill positions like math and special ed. Ultimately, he says he believes developing homegrown talent is one of the best ways to find teachers who will stay.
“If we can take staff that are in support roles at West," he said, "that know what it takes to be successful in that building, [and] help them earn a teaching license, those are staff that are going to stay long term in a building."
That’s what Dee Edgerton did. She started as a paraprofessional and worked her way towards a teaching license.
And even though they’re stretched thin, teachers like Edgerton say they’re not leaving West anytime soon.
“We come back here," she said, "because our kids need us. These kids need us.”
