The steep increase in the use of emergency licenses is presenting superintendents, administrators and principals with a conundrum as they grapple with teacher vacancies. Consider this: Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction approved nearly double the number of emergency teaching licenses in 2021-22 than it had issued about a decade ago, resulting in a 184% increase—from 1,125 to 2,072, the nonprofit Wisconsin Policy Forum reports.
In that same time period, 103 additional Wisconsin districts—in all parts of the state—began using emergency certifications, which had previously been concentrated in urban and rural school systems. And the number of emergency license holders (a person can hold more than one license) rose to a new high of 2,854 in 2021-22, compared to just under 1,100 in 2013.
“The use of emergency licenses does not necessarily indicate a problem in a district,” the authors of the Wisconsin report write. “However, the rapid growth in emergency certifications raises questions about whether workforce challenges have grown for districts, whether the use of emergency licenses has outgrown their original purpose, and whether other solutions should be considered.”
Emergency licenses, of course, provide administrators with quick solutions to fill pressing vacancies and can get teachers who have relocated to new states back into the classroom quickly. These licenses can also help students in alternative certification programs gain valuable teaching experience.
“With proper support, the emergency license holders of today are more likely to remain in the profession and reduce the need for this approach in the future,” the Wisconsin researchers conclude.
Investing in emergency licenses
In Oklahoma, schools had set a new annual record for emergency teaching certifications by November of last year, when the state hit 3,690—74 more than in all of 2021, according to KOSU and StateImpact Oklahoma. The state had also started 2021-22 by breaking another record—teaching vacancies.
Roughly 4% of teachers—as many as 56,000—were uncertified or using an emergency license, according to a Southern Regional Education Board analysis of the K12 workforce in 11 states. The Board projects that 16 million students in the region could be in classrooms with an unprepared or inexperienced teacher, The Dallas Morning News reported.
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Even during times of rising teacher vacancies, some in and around education worry about the impact that the explosion of emergency licenses will have on institutional quality and student achievement. Paul Farmer, a board member of the Indiana State Teachers Association, told the Tribune-Star that lack of experience is a big downside to the short-term fixes. “The pedagogy is absent in a lot of situations—the emotional understanding of how kids grow, their brain development, the understanding of adolescent development,” Farmer told the Tribune-Star.
Equity is another concern. The U.S. Department of Education has found that schools serving predominantly children of color are about four times more likely to rely on uncertified or under-certified teachers, the Oregon Capital Chronicle reports. Oregon, for its part, saw emergency licenses skyrocket to 438 in the 2021-22 school year from 181 the year before and 134 five years ago. These teachers need neither a bachelor’s degree nor any training, according to the Chronicle.
With teacher vacancies continuing to rise, administrators will not only be relying on emergency licenses but looking for ways to support those who hold them. “We see emergency license teachers as not only a way to plug a temporary hole in the recruiting system but, more importantly, as a long-term investment in school leadership within the next decade,” Deborah Margolis and Russ Olwell, both deans at Merrimack College’s Winston School of Education and Social Policy, wrote in Commonwealth.
To help smooth this transition, they suggest providing emergency license holders with coaching and mentors and incentivizing them to consider getting certified in high-needs areas such as “grade-level leadership, building leadership, social-emotional learning and diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
