(FRANKFORT, KY) – The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) shared details on the recent educator shortage survey districts participated in during the Superintendents Webcast on Nov. 14.

Kentucky schools report job vacancy information to the Kentucky Educator Placement Service (KEPS). KDE is required to maintain KEPS in accordance with KRS 160.152(2).

Commissioner of Education Robbie Fletcher said the KEPS data is flawed for multiple reasons, so to get more accurate real-time data, KDE conducted an educator shortage survey this fall across all 171 public school districts and state-run schools.

Fletcher thanked each of the superintendents and their staffs for participating in the survey.

“The better information that we can give, the more valid information that we can give. It’ll help us make decisions and also help those in the legislative world make decisions,” Fletcher said.

Some key points from KDE’s educator shortage survey:

  • For the 2023-2024 school year, 13% of all vacancies across Kentucky remained unfilled for the entire school year.
  • The majority of districts – 116 – reported fewer than 10 vacancies as of Sept. 1. On the other end of the spectrum, three districts had more than 75 vacancies.
  • As of Sept. 1, 1,766 vacant classified support staff positions were reported. There were 447 vacant licensed educator positions, 363 vacant special education and early childhood teaching positions, 889 vacant general teaching positions and 64 school-level administrative positions.

Only one district reported being fully staffed as of Sept. 1: Science Hill Independent, a district in Pulaski County with one school serving 442 students in preschool through 8th grade.

Leslie McKinney, strategic data analyst in the KDE Office of the Commissioner, said districts are using a variety of strategies to make up for the lack of educators, including using substitute teachers, using retired teachers and increasing class sizes.

“We have a lot of our schools and districts that have a shortage of substitutes, so that being the No. 1 mitigation strategy also has some unintended consequences,” McKinney said. “We have administrators who are covering classes; we have outsourcing of positions.”

According to the data supplied by KDE, special education and early childhood educator shortages are a significant issue. The survey results indicate that as of Sept. 1, there were 216 open learning behavior specialist positions, 74 vacant positions for moderate and severe disabilities teachers, and 42 vacancies for early childhood educators.

School psychologists and speech therapists have the highest shortage rates among licensed professionals working in schools. Districts reported needing 44 speech pathologists or therapists and 43 school psychologists as of Sept. 1.

Schools also struggle to find bus drivers and teaching aides to support their students. As of Sept. 1, districts reported 480 open teaching aide positions, 339 open positions for bus drivers, 260 open food service positions and 215 open custodial positions. Approximately 29% of all support staff vacancies in the 2023-2024 school year went unfilled.

In the survey, district leaders indicated that they felt the quality of applicants for positions during the 2024-2025 school year were either of similar quality (49%) or lower quality (42%) to candidates from the previous year.

Fletcher said investing in programs that improve the educator workforce will help build better candidates for district vacancies.

“We really need those sources of funds so we can build our base and we can build those new teachers, and making sure that we have other funds to … meet the needs of those new teachers and … new classified staff members, new principals,” Fletcher said. “One of the things we learn is in order to retain people, they need a support system, but … to get the results that we need, there needs to be mentorship, networking and an area where we’re training folks.”

In other business:

  • KDE staff reminded superintendents about the School-Based Mental Health Services Provider Professional Use of Time Survey. The deadline to submit the survey has been extended to Nov. 25.