Illinois has suffered an extreme shortage of teachers and substitutes during the last two years. Nearly half of all schools in Illinois reported having at least one teacher vacancy during the 2022-2023 school year according to Capitol News Illinois. 

However, 86% of schools in the United States struggle to hire educators, according to an article published by USA Today. 

“There is a severe teacher shortage in education, but we have the shortest substitute teacher list that we have ever had,” principal John Crabb said. 

This shortage has not only affected the school systems but has also proven to take its toll on the students themselves. Teacher shortages lead to missed or insufficient learning opportunities. 

“We used to have more subs available, and there were days where we could use them to work one-on-one with students who were way behind on their work,” Crabb said. 

Another way that losing substitutes and teachers can affect the students is that there may be a discontinuity in the delivery of instruction, and key concepts may be overlooked altogether. These occurrences limit the educational opportunities that students can and should receive, as stated by Elevate K-12.

Though Harrisburg High School is struggling with this issue, our middle school and elementary school share the same shortage. When there is a shortage of teachers and substitutes the problem occurs at more than just the high school level. 

“The shortage is affecting schools at all levels, and at all geographic locations as well,” Crabb said. 

Also according to the article from Elevate K-12, the leading causes of this teacher shortage are low wages, high workloads, and challenging work conditions. But, this problem is more complex than these surface-level issues. 

“We probably need to do a better job of advertising our dire need for people to become substitute teachers in our district,” Crabb said. “I am not sure that there is anything that can be done to prevent teacher absences.  Through the collective bargaining agreement in our district, teachers have a number of days that they have available to them to use to take off.  Those can be used for any reason.”

Experts say the shortage of substitutes has grown more acute since the pandemic because fewer people are entering the teaching profession compared with a decade ago, and there has been more teacher turnover in recent years, according to Sarah Mervosh from the New York Times. 

“We are always looking for quality substitute teachers,” Crabb said.