9. One-On-One

One-On-One

A school district called me out of the blue because of my Biology endorsement, which was very nice.  They offered me a part-time position, ten hours per week, no benefits.  I would be the one-on-one teacher for a student who had been expelled. 

I had previously thought that expelled students lost the privilege of an education.  Now I learned otherwise.  The student had been enrolled in an advanced Biology course before being expelled.  They needed a teacher who could keep him moving forward in this area, along with his other courses. 

But why had he been expelled?  I asked, they didn’t know.  I asked them to please find out and get back to me.  They called back later and told me the infraction (smoking).  I had seen smoking disciplined before – student not expelled.  Smoking didn’t sound to me like a serious-enough offense to get the student permanently thrown out of school. 

Troubled students usually were suspended or went to an alternative program.  I had subbed in the alt program and had met those students.  I had seen their behavior, and the police had been involved the last time I was there.  The police didn’t seem to involve themselves in underage smoking very often.  The police knew these alt school kids and kept an eye on them.  They were a rough crowd, but they weren’t expelled.

This was worse.  It was complete expulsion. 

No more details about the student were available to me.

Where would I teach him?   There was a meeting room at a library we could use.  I asked for some time to think about it.

I still wanted a job, but this made me nervous.  I asked the advice of a retired local teacher who had dealt with troubled youth during his career.  He asked me why the young man had been expelled.  I told him the infraction -- smoking.  He thought it must be something worse than that – perhaps this was the technicality they had used to get him out, after a long history of trouble. 

He advised me to ask the following questions:

·      How old is this young man? (He could be as old as 21 and still be in high school.)

·      How physically big is he? (I am not a very large woman.)

·      Would I be alone with him, one-on-one? 

·      Could there be another person in the room as a witness for anything that happened? 

·      Could I be within sight of other adults at all times in case I was ever in danger? 

The district said they would investigate and get back to me with the answers.

I mentioned my other work and my business travel in May.  I would need a few days of unpaid leave and a substitute.  Again, as with the other district, it was a no go.  Regretfully, they said that they would have to find someone else.  They withdrew the offer.

He had been thrown out of school, but his advanced-science-and-everything-else personal one-on-one teacher couldn’t request a sub for ten hours in order to take unpaid leave for a trip she had scheduled before they sought her out for an emergency hiring.

I lost this job.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  That job scared me.  I’d already been involved in one narrowly-averted school killing spree.  I didn’t want to be closed in a room with a smoky kid who was too naughty to attend the alternative school.

Soon I had a decision to make.

10. Fairy Tales

Fairy Tales

The ideal fairy tale plan is for an energetic young Oregonian college student to graduate with a license, get a teaching job, and within the first three years begin a Master’s degree concurrent with teaching.  Most teaching contracts allow a financial benefit to assist with this.  This Master’s would provide plenty of graduate coursework credits to convert the Initial I license, the Initial II and on to a more permanent license.

Oregon gives an Initial I license that is good for three years from graduation from an Ed program, plus the months to your next birthday.  By then you must have sufficient graduate level credits to convert the license to an Initial II -- the next step before a permanent license is finally granted.  

Those who graduated with a license but haven’t been hired will have to spend their own money on graduate tuition to convert their licenses within three years.  They will have to find the money and time to do this during their days, nights, weekends or online.  Will they do this if there are still no teaching jobs on the horizon?

I was aware of teacher licensure before I went to WOU, so I am not whining – too much.  However, the licensure laws work against career changers like me, especially in a down economy.

I understand the upside of licensure laws.  Medical Dietetics has licensure – I have a state license myself – and it has the double benefit of protecting public health and protecting the jobs of RD’s.  The same is true in education, which is why WOU has their excellent post-bacc program to gain a license.  

I came with a Master’s degree.  I don’t need to get another one, but none of my prior credits or experience counts.  I need new credits to convert my license, which must be graduate level, which is also higher tuition.  This was one of my unanswered questions for TSPC – if I do a FACS practicum, is that considered graduate credit, and will it count?  Most student teachers are undergrads.  

Unless, of course, I do a Master’s program in FACS, which is impossible for me to enroll in due to my over-qualification problem.

When the teacher can’t get a job, then what?  In Oregon I know of no dormancy or hiatus available for this licensure upgrade requirement.  Wouldn't it be great if you could convert it within your first three years of teaching?  But no – it’s within the first three years of having the license.

If the license lapses, you still have another 7 years (10 years from when it was first issued) to convert it before it completely expires.  However, if the license isn't converted and isn't current, you can’t apply for teaching jobs.  Perhaps you could apply, but it would come out that you weren't current and you couldn't be hired until you were.  That could take awhile, which wouldn't work in the current climate of “only emergency hires” during a hiring freeze.

….Unless you are a laid-off Hewlett-Packard engineer, from what I heard.  After a massive lay-off from HP in Corvallis, rumor had it they were offered “grandfathered” teaching licenses – just walk right in to teach Physics and Chemistry, or so I heard.  Great idea!  What about extending it to all experienced career-changing STEM educators?  What about having the HP guys take a couple of education classes as part of the deal?  Maybe it was, I don’t know.  I never heard any more about that, and I have no idea if that was true, or if any of them are teaching in Oregon or not.  I did some research and couldn't find any confirmation to the rumor I heard.  So, maybe that’s a fairy tale.  

There certainly was no parade of HP engineers seeking that 0.47 FTE Chemistry job I was offered.

Another fairy tale:  Perhaps the initial license could have flexibility for conditions of unemployment, or previous Master’s degrees, or work experience, and other things that veer off the typical path to the classroom.  

And yet another pipe dream:  Perhaps teachers in high need STEM subjects could be “grandfathered” some seniority to protect them from being RIF’d when there is a massive lay-off concurrent with a STEM teacher shortage.  It’s not just for the teacher’s benefit – it’s for the students’.  Specifically, those 120 students.  

The entire employment application (and it is lengthy and complex) is maintained online through a subscription service.  Teaching jobs are posted to this service, and you apply through it.  It’s efficient.  There is an annual fee, of course.  It’s the only way to find and apply for teaching jobs in many districts around here.  Do I keep paying the fee? 

So, do I spend the time and money to take the graduate coursework?  It costs over $2,000 -- perhaps as much as $5K.  This is for online or in-person classes – I can’t find an option that is cheaper.  Of course, there are costlier ones.  There is also the work load.  Do I give up paying work for more graduate coursework?  

With the local district facing another $30 million short-fall and more possible lay-offs by seniority, do I convert my license?  

Do I pay for the privilege of hitting more brick walls?

There are other districts, but similar problems are happening in other large districts in our state.  I can commute within a radius that makes sense, but I don't want to drive more than 100 miles/day.  It’s a financial and professional high wire act.  

Another option – a General Substitute’s License.  A teacher can convert an Initial I license to a general sub license for $100.  It’s good for 3 years.  It is good in any school in the state.

I know people who sub full-time.  It pays a day-rate maximum that is less than an entry-level teacher without a Masters, no benefits, before you subtract the days they don’t hire subs: Grading days, conference days, inservice days, furlough days, legal holidays, breaks and summer.  It provides no financial assistance toward continuing education to convert a license.  But it also requires no evening or weekend (unpaid) work.  

However, a General Substitute License is not endorsed.  

I would no longer be a Chemistry and Biology teacher. The nation needs science teachers – would I let it go?

11. Bells and Bricks

Bells and Bricks

“Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.”

(It’s A Wonderful Life)

Angels don’t need wings in order to fly, but humans do.

Every time a human takes flight – or drives a car – or is wheeled into an operating room – or steps into an elevator – that person is putting their survival in the hands of someone else’s STEM education (or lack of it).  Our lives depend upon it.  

Every time you hear a ringtone, or something beeps, buzzes or dings, you are hearing something that required someone to have an understanding of STEM. 

Over the past decade I have become acutely aware of the situation in STEM Education, ever since I found the ad for a Foods teacher in my RD job listings.  That little ad started a long journey through a maze of brick walls – at least as far as a career in education is concerned.     

I now know that a Registered Dietitian with a Masters in Clinical Nutrition cannot even SUBSTITUTE in an Oregon Foods classroom, let alone be the permanent teacher.  There is no way to gain the FACS endorsement.  Over-qualified for the university coursework required to get into the classroom.  

Our public schools have systemic problems of multiple unintended consequences magnified over time.  NO ONE wants this!  Of all the people I’ve encountered on this journey, I’ve dealt directly with very few who were destructive.  Everyone else was hard-working, smart, kind, creative, prepared and conscientious. 

Anyone who knew me in my youth is probably surprised that I am even in this situation.  I struggled in Chemistry at first, and it never got “easy”.  Without good teachers, study groups and study buddies (thank you), I would never have made it.  By the time I took college Organic Chemistry and beyond, I was an A student, but it was still rugged.  Who would go through that without a solid career prospect?  The truth is, very few do.

Even so, teaching Chemistry should have worked out.  At the time I got my license, there were fewer Oregon teachers endorsed in Chemistry than there were Oregon high schools.  Can that have possibly improved?  I sadly turned down my Chemistry offer, for which I was the only applicant. 

At WOU I learned that teachers don’t go into it for the money, they go into it for the love of teaching.  They follow their hearts.  I followed my heart too.  Chemistry teachers analyze and apply the scientific method right down to the heart of the matter.   I analyzed the data and the numbers and I did not return to graduate school again to renew my license.

Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do, doesn't mean it's useless.  

Thomas Edison

I write.  I develop educational products.  I volunteer.  I blog.  I cook.  I sew (Oh?  Did I not mention that, FACS people?  I have been sewing my own clothes since I was eleven).  Had I been hired when the schools advertised in my RD letter, I could have been teaching Foods and Nutrition for over a decade already – but they probably wouldn't be using my textbooks because I would not have had time to write them.

Personally, I can see that my writing career and my life are better for having gone to Western Oregon University’s Post-Bacc Licensure-Only Education Program.  However, is my personal enrichment the reason WOU has the program?  Is that why I borrowed money to enroll?  No.

When I hear about the teacher shortage in STEM education or in FACS education, I want to laugh, and cry, and put my fist through the wall.  But not a brick wall – I already hit those and it hurt.  I did all the things required, forked-out a lot of money, worked like a mad dog to get through it, got job offers and still hit brick walls.  

I have yet to hear a school bell ring for my class -- I have no wings. 

12. A Visit To The State Capitol

A Visit To The State Capitol

In 2013 sent my story to all of my federal and state legislators.  I sent it to the Executive Director of Teacher Standards and Practices Commission (TSPC), the person I could never contact directly.  There would be no danger in sending this to her, since she never reads my stuff anyway.

My state legislator, Vicki Berger, read it.  She contacted me and asked, “What can my office do for you?”  I told her that I wanted TSPC to read my request for a FACS endorsement.  She contacted the Executive Director of TSPC and got her attention.  Within a few days I had an email from the Executive Director of TSPC.  Vicki Berger is a rock star.

This email, from the Executive Director, said that not only am I eligible for the FACS endorsement, but also that I should have had it all along!  She said that my transcript, my FACS Praxis test, my career experiences and my prior college and graduate school teaching in the subject area qualify me for the endorsement.

Nice to know.  I suppose I could have told that to the HR departments of various school districts, “Oh, I should have the FACS endorsement you need.”  We all knew that already.  But I didn’t have it, so those jobs went to other candidates while I was ineligible to interview.

  

How do I actually get the endorsement printed onto my license?  She offered no instructions for going forward.  Maybe I print up the email and take it with me to job interviews.  I can tell people “TSPC says I can have this.”

The email box from which she sent it was called a generic “contact”.  Every email reply I have ever received from TSPC is from this same address.  This is the only address I have had to use.

She said that she was sorry I had not been able to reach her agency.  I was in her agency in person in two different locations (before and after they moved), left hard copy documents for her, plus phone calls, mail and email multiple times over the years.  I had no problem reaching her agency – she was the one I couldn’t reach – the decision-maker.  She said that they handle 20,000 inquiries per year.   I always got an answer, always from someone who told me to go back to the university FACS programs for which I was over-qualified.  I tried to be heard.  I wasn't. 

I have opted to substitute teach on a General Substitute License rather than return to graduate school to renew my license at this time.  This is the most logical and cost-effective avenue right now, given my other employment options.  Maybe this was a mistake.  She pointed this out – the FACS endorsement is a moot point, since I don’t have a current license.  She reminded me that I need to get 9 graduate-level quarter credits or 6 graduate-level semester credits to renew my license, then I can have the FACS endorsement.

I was mistaken here too.  I thought it would take 4.5 credits to renew my license.  Nope -- it was 9.  Had I renewed the Initial I before it expired, I could have done it with half the graduate credits, and then had a few years on the new license to complete the other half of the required graduate credits.  Now I would have to do them all up-front.  The objective is to make sure that every teacher in Oregon has a Masters degree.

I already have a Masters degree.  In fact, over-qualification has been my problem all along.  Now I have to get even more graduate school credits in order to apply for jobs.

I made a bold move.  I wrote back to her, and asked that the additional graduate credit requirement be waived in light of my already having an over-qualification problem.  I asked that my license please be renewed now, endorsed in Chemistry, Biology and FACS.

I made an appointment to see Vicki Berger.  The Legislature is in session, so she offered to see me during their afternoon break.  I went to the Oregon State Capitol, which is a busy place during session, and found her office.  I thanked her for her help.  I produced the letter I wrote to TSPC with my request.

  

She arched an eyebrow and agreed that it was a bold move.  She said that she really can’t ask them to do this for me.  I told her I wasn’t asking her to lean on them, I just wanted to meet her in person, thank her, and inform her of my next step.  I gave her a copy of my letter and my resume.

My next stop was TSPC.  I took the letter in person, along with my resume and a printed copy of the email the director sent me.  I had to leave it at the front desk, of course, and they assured me that they would give it to her.  They had some Valentine candy for me.

I hit the reply button on her email promising me the endorsement.  I pasted a copy of my letter there and sent it to that “contact” address.  She has been sent my request via hand-delivered paper letter and email.

I received the standard replies from “contact” by email.  They acknowledged receipt of my documents.  They acknowledged receipt of my email.  They said they are overloaded and will get back to me within a few months.  The same runaround as ever, exactly how it’s been with every encounter.

Do you remember in Raiders of The Lost Ark, after all they go through to get the Ark, it then gets tucked away into a vast warehouse of junk, where it will never be seen again?  

I started this when I was 48.  I visited my representative when I was 54.  The years were slipping away.

13. FACS and Flexibility

FACS and Flexibility

I sent a short letter of my experience to our district Superintendent.  I guess she sent it to her Human Resources dept.  The HR lady who had worked with me on the Chemistry job offer in 2011 actually went online and read all of my blog posts and contacted me.

The nice lady was partly (and politely) defending their actions with the employment situation because their hands are tied by their procedures and requirements.  I understand her frustration, as she seems to understand mine.  The parents and students with substitutes for months are the ones who might not understand.

Then I got a call from a local middle school asking me to take a long-term sub for a maternity leave for the Foods/Sewing teacher.  They were given my name by the nice lady at HR, who told them to call me.  While very nice, that's pretty interesting, because HR knows that:

a) My license expired and I now only have a general sub license which is not approved for long-term sub slots (three day max)

b) When I had my license I was only high school endorsed, and never took the ORELA or did the other things required for a teacher or long-term sub in middle school

c) I have never had a FACS endorsement, required for a long-term sub in FACS

I suppose this means that someone has power to side-step the statutes after all.  There always WAS wiggle room. 

If they had exercised that power years ago when they advertised in my dietetics jobs letter for an RD for a Foods/FACS opening, I could have been teaching this entire time.

Now they can ignore the rules and be super flexible to get “the right person for the job” she said.

Now that I have brought the ridiculous situation to their attention, I have, possibly, sadly, embarrassed people who did not create this mess.  They are being very nice and trying to fix it.  I am trying to fix it too.  If not for myself, then for future educators and certainly for the students.

14. Working Hard or Hardly Working?

Working Hard or Hardly Working?

I had another work opportunity back East again before the end of the school year within that middle school long-term sub time-frame.  I was to meet with one of my publishers.  I needed to get on-site work done on another current project back East, and I had set-up a lunch date with one of my editors while back there.  It was booked.  It would have cost me a lot of money to skip it.  

If the middle school would allow for another sub during that brief time, I would take the middle school job.  They wouldn’t, again.  So I couldn’t.  Again.

I have continued to watch openings.  I was offered an online teaching job, but I was offered – again – right before a trip (as we were running out the door, luggage loaded in the car).  I would need to get to a meeting the next day and start immediately.  I said, “Yes I am interested.  I’ll be back in three days!”  They wouldn’t wait.  They offered $10K/year (25%) less than the brick-and-mortar public schools for full-time work.  My husband said, “They can give you time to think about it.”  They didn’t.  I passed.  Again.   

It sounds like I am unwilling to take a job!  I am willing, but getting farther away from it all the time.   I still love the classroom, but I have been moving forward with my life and my career over the years since graduation.  I am now more difficult to hire, especially now that I have just the sub license.

I looked into private schools, since I could teach there with my current license.  There is a Christian high school in town.  I read their employment application, and my LDS faith eliminates me from eligibility to even apply unless I denounce my faith (even though I am a Christian, I don’t fit their definition).  I get that, but it’s one less teaching option for me.  Their sub pay-rate was half the public schools’ anyway.

Did you catch a few ‘sour grapes’ in that last sentence?  Truth is, I’d be happy to sub or teach at the Christian school, if the pay was enough to not go in the hole.  I wouldn’t preach, I’d just teach science.  But private religious schools have the right to call their own shots, and I defend that right.  

I contacted a Catholic high school about a long-term Chemistry sub opening.  I have my trip back East for two weeks during that time.  I live over 50 miles from the school.  I am not Catholic.  We’ll see if they respond to me.

I registered and applied with every tutoring agency and service in town.  I have never had a call.  Other tutors I have spoken with have also never been called.  

I applied for a faculty position at the very university that said I was overqualified for their FACS program.  This is the same school that thought a BYU grad would be “too Christian” to teach science (while I’m “not Christian enough” for the Christian schools).  They need a dietetics professor, and I have every qualification they have listed.  I fully expect them to hire a PhD – so in this case I will probably be underqualified.  But I haven’t given up yet.

A girl stopped me the other day and said, “You were my chemistry student-teacher!  It’s because of you that I’m studying Nursing.  I loved your class, thank you!”  I saw another girl at the dry cleaner who said essentially the same thing, except that she is majoring in Marine Biology.  Science opens doors.

I subbed last week, and it was fun.  They have me booked for some future sub slots too.  Plus they might have a science opening next year.  I don’t have a license.

We’ll see if anyone responds to me.  No matter what happens, there will be at least one more nurse and one more marine biologist in the world. 

15. The Catholic High School

The Catholic High School

The Catholic high school got back with me.  The fact that I asked if it was OK that I am not Catholic made the Assistant Principal smile, she said. 

I wasn’t joking – I was checking.  I told her about the other religious school that didn’t want an LDS teacher.  She was not amused, and sent the following:

“Well, the Lasallian tradition is inclusive, it started out as a way to help poor kids, but did such a good job that parents who could afford to pay for school wanted their kids to go there.  Originally all the schools were free; that’s long gone, but we put a huge amount of money into tuition assistance to avoid becoming another private academy with some scholarship kids.  Staff hiring is based on academic credentials.  The Archdiocese requires that the principal and Religious Studies teachers be Catholic, but beyond that we don’t care.”

I’m pleased knowing that I’m not too religious, or I’m religious enough, to teach science after all.  I think I would love to teach there.

But they are still too far away to justify commute expenses (115 miles) when compared to after-tax salary.

We chatted online back and forth a little bit, this Assistant Principal and I.  She told me the harrowing story of her own daughter’s quest to be a teacher.  Her daughter has courageously prevailed and has her own classroom now, but not without years of ridiculous bureaucratic and autocratic challenges along the way.  Crazy.  How many others are trained to teach students and aren’t able to?  


Yet the call continues to go out, “We need more qualified teachers!”    

She sent me this quote:

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.

Mohandas Gandhi

16. Bumps In The Road

Bumps in the Road

I have been writing about the current challenges I have been having with employment and licensure issues in my erstwhile career as a high school teacher.  Attending Western Oregon University for the license was not without serious complications.  Perhaps I should have taken the hint and quit right then.  But such is not my style.


My mother died the first day of work sample teaching during Term 2 at WOU.  

My whole world changed.  I probably should have just quit right then.  She died of natural causes, out-of-state.   I had just been there the weekend before to visit her.  Sadly, and oddly, her personal belongings were robbed before I got there, and before the mortician came.  I took time away for the family time and funeral and emptying her home for new residents, in addition to the necessary police work from the theft.  Those of you who have dealt with the belongings of a deceased parent know what this means.  My husband, brother, sister-in-law and I worked as efficiently as possible.  We eventually made our way back to Oregon with a U-Haul.  




While I was gone I missed some key instruction in the written aspects of The Work Sample, which vexed me later.  The Work Sample is the large written product of each term of student teaching.  Made it through.

My young adult son was in a head-on collision the first week of Term 4 student teaching.  

His whole world changed.  I probably should have just quit right then.  He was in the process of moving across the country, and still wanted to go.  He spent some time in his new area before his injuries brought him back home for awhile.  It was after I finished at WOU and was looking for work.  It’s perhaps better that I was busy with a textbook job at home instead of a teaching job away from home, because I was there as needed.  Having the text to write was good because he didn’t need or want me to hover as he moved through his various challenges.  He survived his wreck, and went on with his life, but with a future very different than the one he had planned.  




17. A Locked Gate With An Expensive Key

A Locked Gate With An Expensive Key

Remember how the Executive Director of the teacher licensing board (TSPC) (upon being prompted by my State Representative) recently told me that I should have had the FACS (Foods) endorsement all along?  She got back to me and said I’m eligible for it to be printed on my next renewed license if I fill out a form and pay a $100 fee.

She told me that I can have the FACS endorsement as soon as I get the 4.5 graduate credits to renew the license.  It will actually require 9 graduate quarter credits when all is said and done – 4.5 to start the process and get an active license again, before I am eligible to apply for positions.   Another 4.5 before I am eligible for a permanent Oregon license.

According to the licensure laws, the graduate credit to renew must be post-licensure.  I don't need another Master's, but I do need more graduate school.

I did not get the credit to renew yet due to no job and poor prospects, fully aware that my license would expire.  I do not need the grad credit for a substitute’s license, or to write textbooks.

I have earned over 375 post-graduate medical dietetics continuing education credits in the 25+ years since I received my Master’s, which are required to be an RD (75 credits every 5 years).  These are taught at a professional level, assuming a Master’s or a Doctorate.  My professional organization sent a letter to TSPC about my performance in this area.  These credits don’t count – they must be graduate credits germane to my teaching obtained after my first license.

    

Director said that I needed the new credit because my Master’s Degree was decades old.

Was that deliberately meant to be insulting?   

There is no legal expiration date on credits or transcripts.  

My Master’s was current to enable me to pass the various 21^st-century Praxis exams that I took to gain my endorsements (tests designed for current majors in the subjects).  It was current enough to get me recruited to come teach.  Current enough for WOU to accept me into their Post-Bacc.  Current enough for TSPC to grant me my license.

    

I asked the Executive Director of TSPC for a waiver, since over-qualification was my problem in the first place.  

She said no, and that she didn’t have the authority.  She replied personally, and I appreciate her time.  I asked who does have authority.  The reply:  It’s written into law, and everyone must comply.

It is a problem that I already had a graduate degree before coming to teach.

What's more, after I renew, I then must be employed in teaching for several years to gain my final -- permanent -- license.  I could spend all the money for grad school and renew, and still end up out in the cold job-wise and lose my license again with no recourse.      

They don’t know how to open the gates to welcome career-changers.  Do they want to?

18. Downward Spiral

Downward Spiral

As the years went on, there were two more Chemistry teaching positions posted locally.  One was for Chemistry AND Physics endorsed.  The other was for Chemistry AND Advanced Math endorsed, plus able to speak Spanish and/or Russian.  Each was on a temporary one-year contract.  That's all they want?    

I have some limited Spanish, no Russian.  I don’t have the Math or Physics endorsements also required for these positions.  If I apply, would they try to divide the job in half, like they did with the other one I applied for?  They already posted it as a temporary job – and one with a language barrier to boot.

Let’s pretend that a clever college student is going to double-major in Chemistry Education and Physics Education with a minor in Advanced Math Education, plus take Russian and/or Spanish until they have fluency.  Let’s now assume that this whiz-kid is going to pursue a job that pays $36,000 (in a well-paid-teacher state like Oregon).  Then in order to keep that job, this teacher is going to pursue a Masters Degree concurrent with an active teaching job with lesson plans and exams to write and grade in three content areas and in two or three languages, in order to keep that $22.50/hour job (not counting the unpaid prep hours and the weeks without salary).  If that teacher gets cut in a RIF, would that teacher choose to continue the graduate degree to stay in education?

Back to me.  Could I teach in another state without going to grad school again?  There are several states that will license me with the expired Oregon license and what I have now.  Montana is one.  Idaho would make me renew in Oregon first.  I have found many single-subject Chemistry openings in other states, several Biology and even a couple of FACS.  I am guessing that many of these openings are created by teachers who have already announced their retirements.  What will happen as the current staff of Chemistry teachers continues to retire?   

I realize now that I was not the perfect candidate.  I was middle-aged, a bit out-of-date (at the beginning), possessed of a pesky “decades old” Master’s degree, at the top of the entry-level pay scale, taxed in my husband’s tax bracket, and unwilling to take a job that did not provide a net profit (however humble).

So perhaps an ideal candidate is young, current, only has a Bachelor’s degree, enters toward the bottom of the pay scale, is in a low tax-bracket and is willing to take a low-paying job.  But remember, we are talking about STEM education, so that candidate must also have a college major in Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics or other STEM subject.  Lately, it seems from the job postings, this student must be Praxis-ready in at least TWO of these areas (having at least a minor), perhaps more areas and languages. 

This student may have student debt.  This student must have ambitions for a teaching career, and confidence that teaching can pay enough to repay the debt, along with paying tuition for the required graduate degree.  Teaching is, perhaps, the lowest-salary option of all the positions available in the sciences (including healthcare), technology, math and engineering careers.  Why would a young, scientific scholar who is good at math become a teacher?  Love of students, perhaps?  Perhaps.

I love teaching students.  I can deal with the low salary.  Perhaps I AM the ideal candidate. 

Not enough college students are choosing to major in Chemistry Education, Physics Education or Advanced Math Education.  As the teacher pool dwindles, the high schools offer fewer courses, which may be why they have to combine these endorsements and have them do half-day Math and half-day Chemistry.  They should be able to have a full day of classes for several Chemistry teachers at a full-sized high school.  If there are fewer course offerings, then fewer kids will have these subjects in high school.  That means still fewer will be prepared to study them in college.  

Five local FACS jobs (full salary and benefits) have come and gone since I started this, before Dr. Chamberlain told me that I should have had the FACS endorsement all along.  Though I didn’t have the required FACS endorsement, I always applied anyway, but couldn't be hired without the endorsement.  Indeed, my only FACS interview was at the request of the principal who took the time to actually read my resume.  He couldn’t overcome the HR and TSPC hurdles to get me hired.       

Family And Consumer Science is at risk of dying.  In the last 10 years, the number of FACS programs in US high schools has decreased by 45%!  This is according to the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (formerly the FHA).  The number one reason they cite is -- get this -- NOT ENOUGH QUALIFIED TEACHERS.  If that isn't enough to make my blood boil....  But it's true -- there are fewer college programs to prepare the teachers.  These are the classes in the basic cooking (and eating) skills needed for life.   

As far as I know, none of the career-changing high school Science graduates in my class at WOU are employed in the Oregon public schools.  I asked my Science and Math cohorts what they had done since graduation.   

One young Math teacher got a Math classroom, but lost the job to a RIF in her district.  They bumped her out and put a Choir teacher in to teach Math full-time.  Meanwhile, they moved a lower-seniority English teacher to the now part-time Choir position.  The unemployed Math teacher worked as a substitute before leaving the country to teach overseas.  Another high school Math teacher opted-out of public school to teach at a private Christian high school.  This was the case with one of the Biology student-teachers as well.

A Masters-holding career-changing STEM friend my same age who was endorsed in both Math and Biology (who also had a college minor in Chemistry) subbed for years awaiting an opening.  Finally he heard of a Biology job that would be coming open in one year’s time, so he volunteered and subbed the entire year in that school’s Biology program in order to connect with the students, faculty and Principal.  The Principal wanted him.  The department wanted him.  The district did not hire him – his Masters placed him high on the pay scale for entry level.  They hired younger and cheaper -- a new graduate in Biology without a Masters.  My friend did not return to graduate school for the required credit to renew his license and chose to let it expire.  After many attempts to get a classroom, he left teaching to find job security with his own home repair and construction ventures.   

Is that a joke?  Left public school teaching to gain job security through self-employment?

Job security used to be one of the perqs of teaching, and helped to off-set the low salary.  Indeed, it still is a perq if you can get in and stay long enough to gain enough seniority to survive a season of lay-offs.  Hence, that Choir teacher in the Math classroom, still employed and still gaining seniority, while the Math teacher can’t get a job.  Which one of them has the required Math endorsement?

Teaching was still attractive when I started this quest, in spite of low salary, because of job security and benefits above and beyond the joy of teaching:  Health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, community advantages (credit union rates, cell phone plans, fitness club discounts, etc), 40 work weeks per year, disciplinary support for unruly students, reasonable class sizes, continuing education support, etc.

I was offered no job security, temporary contracts, pro-rated or no insurance benefits for myself only (not my husband), less-than-half-time, no continuing education support, with classes of 40 in the wrong classroom or with an expelled student at a library or online with no classroom at all and even lower pay.  For these positions I was offered a salary too low to actually make money.  Add to this rowdy students with ubiquitous cell phones, serious and dangerous student behavior, and (in some districts) year-round school, and it is easy to see why there might be a shortage of candidates.  This is especially true if willing candidates (like me) are given impossible Kafka-esque hoops to jump through only to land face-first against brick walls.

Big problems arise if there are seniority lay-offs.  Reduction-in-Force lay-offs punish the new teachers who absolutely must have a teaching job in order to be eligible for a permanent license.  Established teachers with the required graduate credit and years of teaching experience have permanent licenses.  New teachers, at least in Oregon, are required to have teaching employment along with the graduate credits in order to qualify for a final license renewal, yet they are the very teachers who are laid-off when the district budget falls short.  It serves to drive away the teachers who are employable as scientists and mathematicians into higher-paying careers.  It’s absolutely insane.

It’s spiraling down, folks.  

Chemistry education – all STEM education – is at risk of dying.  And since our very lives depend upon it -- well, you do the math.

Let’s think like a scientist and develop a hypothesis from an if/then scenario:  We need a new generation of Chemistry teachers.  If public schools offer such limited jobs, then will chemistry-trained folks come to teach?  Have they tried this method in the past?  To what result?  Hypothetically, how could the current method put qualified teachers in the classroom?  Could there be trials of other methods?  How did we get the previous generation?  Where did they come from?  Why aren't they here now?

WHO can do this job?  WHY would they?  HOW do we get them in the classroom?  

How do I get into the classroom?  How much will it cost me to renew my license?  Will I even be hired if I renew?  Will there be any openings?  Will I be qualified?

I know I am beating a dead horse by restating this over and over, but it just BLOWS MY MIND.  President Obama sent out a call for 100,000 new STEM Educators by 2021 (State of the Union Address 2011).  Sorely needed?  Yes. 

But who do they expect to do this job?  Not me, it seems.