Education Crisis: Over 70 Teachers Have Resigned Or Retired Since June

ST. CROIX — Over 70 teachers have either resigned or retired from the Department of Education since June, according to Nicole Jacobs, head of HR at DOE. Jacobs also confirmed that the department has been receiving resignations through emails all this week at an alarming rate, as educators wait until the last minute to resign.

The revelation came during a school tour organized by DOE and the 31st Legislature, where Education officials, including Commissioner Sharon McCollum and Assistant Commissioner Charmaine Hobson-Johnson, senators, among them Kurt Vialet, Myron Jackson, Kenneth Gittens and others — along with members the Senate’s staff — traversed the grounds of Claude O. Markoe, Eulalie Rivera and Charles H. Emanuel Elementary Schools here, examining their surroundings and classrooms to see firsthand if they are prepared for the new school year. These schools were chosen because they are set to house students from schools temporarily shuttered for repairs.

Jacobs said the problem is exacerbated because outside teachers need certain criteria before getting approval to teach in the territory. So the department, she added, has relied heavily on its substitute teacher pool — made up of retired educators — to fill the widening gap. Currently, there are 172 substitute teachers in the territory, Jacobs revealed, a jump of 52 new substitutes based on numbers the department gave on Monday.

“It’s different than when you’re hiring a secretary,” she said. “As a secretary, I can easily train you, but you have to possess key credentials prior to coming in front of the students.”

Yet, it’s not all bad news for DOE, as Jacobs made known that there’s been 25 new teacher applications here and 19 in St. Thomas. This does not include the 38 teachers being imported from the Dominican Republic and the Philippines, and DOE officials are in talks with Puerto Rico’s Education officials to hire teachers from the Commonwealth. The teachers from the Dominican Republic and the Philippines arrive in the territory today, Friday, and on the 19th and 24th of this month, according to Jacobs.

The Department ended the 2014-15 school year with over 170 vacancies, however it has managed to close the gap to 140 vacancies. And the school closures that’s led to consolidation of students in various facilities have worked in the department’s favor, Jacobs added, because with more schools comes the need of more teachers.

The Department has seen 6 resignations and 20 retirements here, and in the St. Thomas-St. John District, 19 teachers have resigned and 26 retired — a total of 71 educators — between June 19 to August 8 of 2015.

“This does not include anything that I’ve received this week,” Jacobs said, referring to resignations she’s been receiving via email of teachers who have already left the territory. “If you don’t report back to school you will be terminated; so you don’t want that on your record, but it does not negate the fact that [being a teacher] is not a profession that you can just fill the positions,” Jacobs made known.

And contrary to popular belief, DOE does not pay for imported teachers’ housing, nor does it pay for their tickets to travel to the territory, and no bonuses are given “because of our financial situation,” Jacobs said. The Department does, however, aid with the visa program that allows the educators to work in the U.S.

“So we prefer that individuals come for the beauty of the islands, for the love of the teaching profession,” Jacobs went on.

The visa program being utilized is called the J-1 Visa Exchange, or student exchange, that allows the teachers to live and work in the U.S. for three years, compared to the H-1 Visa program the department previously utilized that included six years of stay in the U.S. Jacobs said they’re using a visa program that offers less years because the first program, which started in 2007 when the department imported 150 teachers to the territory and saw DOE expending over $100,000 in immigration and attorney fees, collapsed because most of the teachers left.

“I’ll tell you that 70 percent of them, after they got their permanent status, they’re now gone to California and the Maryland school districts etc, and according to the feds, we are unable to put any structural agreements into place to say if I give you the permanent status, that you have to stay here, because it would be against federal law,” Jacobs concluded.