The teacher shortage, or overall public school staff shortage for that matter, is potentially a national issue.  Although the data on this may be somewhat unclear, the difficulties in recruiting and retaining qualified teachers, especially in areas such as math and science have been pervasive.  An article in Education Week discusses data collected by researchers and states, “With all this data, the researchers estimate that there are more than 36,500 teacher vacancies in the nation. They also estimate that there are more than 163,500 positions filled by teachers who are not fully certified or are not certified in the subject area they’re teaching.”  Reporting from the New York Times also identifies teacher shortages but suggests those may be limited to certain geographic areas.

The Readington Township School District has seen staff shortages as well.  In an effort to identify staffing issues and develop plans for coherent retention and recruitment, the district developed a task force in the fall of 2022.  The findings of the task force appear in the report below.  

Retention and Recruitment Task Force Report