Frontline Blog

There has been a lot of recent discussion in K-12 spheres, including in past Frontline blogs, about the ongoing teacher shortage. Not only does the problem of large numbers of job openings with limited numbers of applicants available to fill them apply to teaching positions, but it also persists for mental-health-related positions.

While many of us can’t wait to get back to in-person professional development and think online PD is less than ideal, I’m here to tell you that virtual professional learning can be highly successful. When online professional learning is well planned and well executed, teachers describe their experiences as “fantastic,” “effective,” “perfect,” and “wonderful.”

As school districts around the country make decisions on how to invest federal stimulus funds, James Fogarty, Esq., the Pittsburgh Learning Collaborative convener and executive director of A+ Schools, shared his insights and suggestions. His innovative ideas on using the funding to shape education for the future emphasize equity for all students and building partnerships with community-based organizations.

The teacher shortage has gained a lot of attention over the past few weeks. National news, local news, and even President Biden have all addressed the topic in recent weeks. According to a survey conducted by Frontline Education, two-thirds of nearly 1,200 school and district leaders across the country reported having a teacher shortage.

An online search for “teacher shortage” will quickly return 435,000 results. Each day yields more headlines about school districts who struggle to hire enough teachers — more than half of school districts we surveyed in 2016 said they were experiencing a shortage.  

In 2019 we saw the first decrease in suicide rates since 1998. That’s the good news. But you would probably not be surprised to learn that the story was different in 2020. While it’s too soon to get the data for suicide rates, the CDC reports hospitals saw a significant uptick in the number of children under 18 admitted for mental health emergencies in the past year. Suicide attempts have skyrocketed, more than double the numbers in 2019.

Lately, in my conversations with schools, I have noted that educators in my own state of New York and other parts of the country are breathing a deep sigh of relief. The COVID-19 interruption to public education, which began over a year ago, appears finally to be ending. There is every likelihood that schools will return to full-time, in-person learning in the fall of 2021.

Among the expectations, pressures, and responsibilities placed on school nurses, documentation might be one of the most important, yet tedious, of all. Compliance requirements like those associated with FERPA and HIPAA make proper documentation more complex.

COVID-19 created extraordinary circumstances in education. Closures and remote instruction isolated students, required novel IEP implementations, and raised significant questions about whether student needs were appropriately met. Those extraordinary circumstances raised extraordinary questions about school legal exposure under conventional legal requirements.