Utah school districts face teacher shortage

Jordan District also needs 37 special education teachers and 24 elementary teachers, Colton said. Kindergarten, for both districts, was particularly tough to staff. Schools without teachers now have been asked to adopt a "Plan B," which for some means literacy or computer specialists will temporarily head classrooms.

"We feel like the most important thing is to take our time and make sure we'll have a teacher who's going to stay with us, and who is a quality teacher. We don't just hire people off the streets," Colton said.

To the north, Salt Lake School District has 13 positions yet to be filled, and Davis School District still has 25 open.

Granite District offers a rosier report: It's almost fully staffed, short just two math teachers and a manufacturing careers teacher for a junior high school, human resources director Mike Fraser said.

"It's like a miracle," he said. "We are so pumped."

Washington and Tooele school districts share the sentiment. But they still have worries.

"We're in good shape actually," said Terry Christensen, human resource director in the fast-growing Tooele District. "The trouble will come when registration is done and we need more teachers."

Washington District hiring trends indicates its fully staffed days could be numbered. It once hired fewer than 30 percent of teacher applicants. This year, it hired 80 percent.

"It would certainly suggest that the teacher shortage ... is likely to have some impact on quality of education," Topham said. "Right now, it's a bit fuzzy and a bit early to say."

Washington's — and other districts' — applicant pool also has changed in recent years to include more teachers who earned licenses the nontraditional way: "alternative routes to licensure." ARL candidates are people who have worked in another career, say, technology, but want to try their hand at teaching.

They must have a bachelor's degree in the subject they would teach, pass a background check, and take classes in pedagogy and general education topics such as "introduction to special education" and "literacy strategies."

As of August, 469 ARL candidates are eligible for employment statewide, and 134 had been hired as of Aug. 2, the State Office of Education reports.

Yet ARL teachers have a high turnover rate, Fraser said. While their content knowledge is vast, some struggle to transfer that knowledge to young minds, he said.

But Washington's Topham sings their praises. His district hired seven in 2005, 23 more the following year, and this year, another 39.

But that alternative candidate pool, if you will, could dry up at anytime, Topham acknowledges. "Then, where are we?"

Utah researchers and policymakers have pondered the question for years. They have some suggestions.