A new report from the Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association found the statewide educator shortage has continued to worsen, with 2,890 reported vacancies across 194 school and charter districts.
This marks the seventh consecutive year of the severity of the teacher retention crisis, according to the report.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also reported the number of educators in the nation has decline by 600,000 since 2020 to about 10 million. Of these vacancies, more than 5,000 teacher positions are filled by people who do not meet standard teacher requirements. Some have an emergency teacher certificate, while others are coming from out of the country on a J-1 visa or are paid student teachers.
