Teacher and Staff Challenges

The Trump administration will release the remaining fiscal year 2025 K-12 grant funds that it had frozen — nearly $5 billion — to states and districts, the Office of Management and Budget confirmed July 25. 

The funding for student academic supports, English learners, immigrant students and teacher training was supposed to be available July 1, but was not released pending a "programmatic review" by OMB, the White House's budget arm.

That review was to ensure the grants align with Trump administration policies and priorities, OMB told K-12 Dive earlier in July. The office had said initial findings showed "many of these grant programs have been grossly misused to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda.”

On July 25, a senior administration official told K-12 Dive in an email, "Guardrails are in place to ensure these funds will not be used in violation of Executive Orders or administration policy." 

Earlier in the week, OMB began releasing $1.3 billion it had withheld for after-school and summer programming under the 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant, according to the Afterschool Alliance. 

The remaining funds to be released are:

• $2.2 billion for Title II-A for professional development. 
• $1.4 billion for Title IV-A for student support and academic enrichment.
• $890 million for Title III-A for English-learner services.
• $375 million for Title I-C for migrant education.

Education officials, Republican and Democratic lawmakers, education organizations, parents and nonprofits had all urged OMB to release the funds that were approved by Congress in an appropriations bill that President Donald Trump signed in March. They said the weekslong delay in accessing the money was already causing "budgetary chaos" for schools, which began cancelling contracts, laying off staff and eliminating programs when the funds didn't arrive as scheduled.

The disruption also spurred two lawsuits. 

A survey by AASA, the School Superintendents Association, found ​​that nearly 30% of districts said they needed access to the withheld funds by Aug. 1 to avoid cutting programs and services for students. By Aug. 15, survey respondents said they would have to notify parents and educators about the loss of programs and services. The survey was conducted earlier this month and drew responses from 628 superintendents in 43 states.

On July 25, David Schuler, AASA's executive director, said in a statement that he was pleased the "critical" funds would now be available to schools.

Sen Patty Murray, D-Wash., vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement July 25, "There is no good reason for the chaos and stress this president has inflicted on students, teachers, and parents across America for the last month, and it shouldn’t take widespread blowback for this administration to do its job and simply get the funding out the door that Congress has delivered to help students."

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, addressed the news during a keynote speech July 25 at the Together Educating America’s Children conference in Washington, D.C., according to a press release. 

"Today, they backed down: our lobbying, our lawsuits, and our advocacy for why these funds matter to kids, it worked." Weingarten said.

Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, said in a July 25 statement, "These reckless funding delays have undermined planning, staffing, and support services at a time when schools should be focused on preparing students for success.”

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — To address chronic shortages of special educators and disability experts, leaders in the field are looking at best practices across early childhood, K-12 and postsecondary to focus on the similar challenges all three levels face in attracting, preparing and retaining special education professionals. 

The cohesive approach to filling shortages of early interventionists, teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals and specialized instructional support personnel — as well as trying to reverse a decline in teacher education enrollment —  reflects a shared mission to support students with disabilities at all age levels, speakers said July 14 at a legislative summit hosted by the Council for Exceptional Children and the Council of Administrators of Special Education. 

"Schools are facing a significant shortage of qualified special education teachers — a challenge that directly affects the support and outcomes for students with disabilities," said Kevin Rubenstein, president of CASE.

Rubenstein added that finding enough teachers to fill staff vacancies "feels like trying to spot a unicorn," because it's "rare but magical."

At the start of the 2024-25 school year, 74% of both elementary and middle schools reported difficulty filling special education teacher vacancies with fully certified teachers, according to federal data. Early childhood education is also facing challenges in recruiting and retaining early interventionists.

At the higher education level, enrollment in teacher preparation programs has plummeted by 45% in one decade, according to CASE.

Supporting special educators

Developing a comprehensive special educator pipeline can better support teacher prep activities so future educators can eventually help boost outcomes for students at all levels, speakers said.

According to Amanda Schwartz, associate project director of the Maryland Early EdCorp Apprenticeship Program at the University of Maryland, some solutions to recruiting and retaining early interventionists include: boosting salaries, reducing teacher-student ratios, and training on high standards for early intervention services. 

Recruiting and retaining qualified early interventionists is critical to children's development, Schwartz said. "We want our teachers to have all this content in order to be able to deliver appropriate practice in classrooms," she said. 

David Krantz, executive director of special education at Michigan's Saginaw Intermediate School District, said it's helpful to have robust data that can pinpoint where there are staffing struggles. 

Krantz then pointed to specific ways districts can attract and retain paraprofessionals who support special educators in the classroom. For starters, he said, paraprofessionals need to know their work matters.

"If people don't feel valued in their service, they're going to leave," Krantz said.

The Michigan Association of Administrators of Special Education started a paraeducator learning series in January to provide professional development and other support to paraprofessionals. About 350 paraprofessionals have participated so far, Krantz said.

In the higher education field, Kyena Cornelius, an education professor at the University of Florida, put it bluntly: "Our supply pipeline is broken." 

While alternative pathways to the teaching profession have grown, those programs often don't provide the depth of training into teaching pedagogy or disability-specific knowledge needed, she said. The alternative pathways, Cornelius added, were never meant to replace traditional teacher preparation programs

She highlighted CEC's professional standards for special educators as a blueprint for the knowledge and skills teachers need so they are ready to serve students with disabilities and stay in the profession. 

"We need to think about how we can not only attract and retain but how we can comprehensively prepare teachers in an affordable way, how we can make it attractable and get them the skills," Cornelius said.

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By PowerSchool

With the ongoing teacher shortage, schools struggle to attract top talent. One promising avenue? Focusing on Generation Z. These digital natives bring fresh energy, tech-savviness, and a desire to assert meaningful change. But drawing Gen Z into education requires understanding what they value and how they engage.

Optimize Your Digital Presence

Gen Z is constantly online. To stand out, schools need a compelling and authentic digital footprint.

• Social Media: Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn offer powerful ways to highlight your school’s culture, share teacher stories, and showcase daily life. User-generated content, especially videos by students and staff, can foster connection and trust.
• Website Best Practices: Ensure mobile-friendly design, intuitive navigation, and streamlined access to job listings. A dedicated careers page with testimonials, clear language, and compelling visuals makes a strong first impression.

Streamline the Application Process

Efficiency matters. Gen Z values speed, clarity, and responsiveness during hiring.

• Online Applications: Keep forms simple, allow save-and-return features, and enable resume autofill to minimize redundancy.
• Applicant Communication Tools: Use automation to send confirmations, schedule interviews, and provide status updates.
• Video Interviews: Meet candidates where they are and allow for flexible scheduling by offering interview opportunities that work for them.

Lead with Values That Matter

Gen Z seeks employers that align with their beliefs, especially around social impact, collaboration, autonomy, and financial stability.

• Purpose & Tech: Emphasize opportunities for meaningful work, highlight student success stories, and show your commitment to instructional innovation and digital learning.
• Commitment to diversity: Gen Z highly values diversity. Showcase inclusive policies, represent diverse voices in marketing, and highlight leadership diversity. Address neurodiversity, gender equity, and accessibility openly.
• Environmental Responsibility: If your school has sustainability efforts—like recycling or energy-saving programs, make those visible. Gen Z cares deeply about climate and ethical responsibility.

Strengthen Community Connections

Personal connections can be powerful recruitment tools.

• Attend regional and virtual job fairs.
• Build partnerships with teacher prep programs to create pipelines.
• Offer mentorship, student teaching roles, and professional development opportunities.
• Engage in education conferences and collaborate with professional organizations.

Offer Competitive Benefits & Growth Paths

Transparent compensation, advancement potential, and work-life balance are priorities for Gen Z.

• Publish clear salary scales and outline growth opportunities.
• Provide tuition reimbursement, loan assistance, and PD funding.
• Support flexible scheduling, wellness initiatives, and leadership pathways.

Leverage Recruitment Technology

Speed matters and if your process drags, you risk losing top candidates.

• Use applicant tracking systems and online assessments to streamline screening.
• Tap education-specific job boards to reach target audiences.
• Apply data analytics to refine strategy and improve hiring outcomes.

By understanding and addressing Gen Z’s unique preferences and values, schools can position themselves as attractive employers to this new generation of educators. Embracing technology, simplifying processes, and aligning with their values helps attract Gen Z teachers and enhances the overall recruitment experience. 

An innovative staffing model in Arizona allows several teachers to work together across multiple learning spaces within a school rather than relying on one teacher to instruct a classroom — and it’s showing promising outcomes for teacher retention, according to a study released June 23 by researchers from Arizona State University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Teachers who worked under the newer team model, known as Next Education Workforce, were notably less likely to leave their jobs compared to educators teaching in traditional classrooms, the study found. For instance, the predicted turnover rate for NEW teachers was nearly 12%, compared to 21% of non-NEW teachers and 16% of all teachers nationwide.

The NEW model’s early signs of success in retaining educators comes at a time when teacher turnover is a leading factor for districts’ teacher shortages, particularly for math and science instruction as well as teachers of color, the study’s authors wrote.

The NEW model taps into a team-based staffing model where an average of four to five teachers collectively take responsibility for at least 100 students depending on the grade level.

Over 150 schools across six school districts in several states, including Arizona and California, have partnered with Arizona State University to implement the NEW model since 2018. The research examining the NEW model was conducted in partnership with the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research organization at ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation.  

Some key elements of the NEW model include providing each student rigorous learning opportunities, allowing teachers to tap into team planning time, moving across shared instructional spaces, and differentiating each teacher’s roles and responsibilities on the team.

“The aim of the NEW model is to make deeper, personalized student-centered teaching and learning possible and sustainable,” the study’s authors wrote. “The ultimate goal is to improve the performance, job satisfaction, and retention of teachers and, in turn, student motivation and learning.”

The research on this alternative staffing model was released the same week that a RAND Corp. report revealed that teachers continue to be more likely than similar working adults to report poor well-being across every indicator measured by the researchers. 

Still, the number of teachers who said they intend to leave their job dropped from 22% to 16% between 2024 and 2025, RAND found. Black teachers, however, reported higher rates of intending to quit than White teachers in 2025. Both findings reflect trends that have developed in recent years, according to RAND.

The lower rates of teacher turnover from the NEW staffing model could ultimately lead to cost savings for districts down the road, the ASU and U-Penn study said. But more cost-savings analysis on the NEW model is needed, the authors wrote, as the team-based teacher approach can also incur some additional costs for districts.

“The old single teacher classroom model is conducted in isolation from colleagues, which creates a ‘sink or swim’ approach that is particularly hard on new teachers - who depart the profession in costly numbers in their early years,” said Richard Ingersoll, a professor of education and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and a researcher on the NEW model study, in a June 23 statement. 

“This re-thinking of the classroom model shows enormous promise for teachers and students alike.”

With diversity, equity and inclusion efforts facing scrutiny under the Trump administration, school districts and states looking to diversify their teacher workforces are in a precarious situation. 

Nearly a month into President Donald Trump’s second term, for instance, the U.S. Department of Education slashed $600 million in “divisive” teacher training grants — specifically through the Teacher Quality Partnership Program and the Supporting Effective Educator Development Grant Program. The department said in February that those cuts were made to grants that “included teacher and staff recruiting strategies implicitly and explicitly based on race.” Advocates for the federal grants said the decision particularly impacted funding for programs aiming to improve teacher diversity in classrooms. 

For years, there’s been a push for more policies to support the recruitment and retention of teachers of color as the nation’s K-12 public school student population grows more racially diverse and as teacher shortages persist. Advocates often point to research that shows when schools hire teachers who look like their students — particularly students of color — student achievement improves and disciplinary rates go down.

While research from the National Council on Teacher Quality found that teacher diversity slowly grew between 2014 and 2022, those findings also suggested that teachers of color are opting out of careers in education as teacher diversity lags behind the rate of the broader workforce.  

But with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling that repealed race-conscious admissions in higher education and the Trump administration's ongoing push against DEI, some experts advise districts and states to be cautious when approaching teacher diversity efforts moving forward. On the flip side, advocates say the need for these initiatives remain. 

A ‘scary’ time for teacher diversity initiatives

Before Modesto City Schools began its teacher workforce diversity partnership with California State University, Stanislaus, there was a “mismatch” in representation between students of color and teachers of color in its elementary schools, said Shannon Panfilio-Padden, an associate professor at the university’s college of education. 

During the 2021-22 school year, elementary enrollment for students of color in Modesto City Schools could range from 60% in some buildings to as much as 98% in others. That’s compared to the range of 13% to 66% among elementary teachers of color in the district, said Panfilio-Padden, who helped oversee the partnership between the district and university. “What Modesto had been working on for years was diversifying their teacher workforce, but no matter what they tried, it wasn’t working.”

By improving collaboration and identifying workforce barriers with Modesto City Schools, CalState Stanislaus — which has a majority Hispanic student population — was able to double the number of candidates who are teachers of color, from 6 to 16, who entered the district’s classrooms between the 2021-22 and 2023-24 school years, said Panfilio-Padden. 

The partnership was spurred through CalState’s Center for Transformational Educator Preparation Programs, which aims to boost recruitment and retention of teachers of color to serve California’s diverse student population. 

At a time when such initiatives are being targeted at the federal level, Panfilio-Padden said “it can be scary.” But, she said, she's dedicated to supporting her students, who are aspiring teachers from diverse backgrounds. 

“We need teachers so desperately in California, and we need highly qualified teachers,” she said. Panfilio-Padden said the university can't predict the amount of federal aid or state grant money that will be available to aspiring teachers, but “at the same time, when they continue to come to us with an enthusiasm to teach elementary kids, it just puts everything into perspective.” 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Massachusetts enacted the Educator Diversity Act in November 2024 as part of the state’s economic development package. The legislation looks to address barriers to recruiting and retaining educators of color by allowing multiple pathways for teacher certification, creating a statewide dashboard for tracking educator workforce diversity at the district level, and increasing uniformity in hiring practices to support candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. 

Students of color make up more than 45% of public school enrollment in Massachusetts, while only 10% of teachers in the state are people of color, according to Latinos for Education, a nonprofit advocacy group that supported the Educator Diversity Act. 

The Educator Diversity Act is “going to help all communities” and not just aspiring educators of color, because the legislation creates more equitable opportunities to enter the teaching profession — and that ultimately benefits everyone, said Jorge Fanjul, executive director for the Massachusetts chapter of Latinos for Education. If the law included a quota based on race, that would be discriminatory, he said, but that’s not the case here. 

While Fanjul said he’s hopeful about the efforts to improve teacher diversity in Massachusetts, parts of the broader movement in the U.S. “may be wounded” because of the Trump administration's anti-DEI policies. 

Elsewhere, a 33-year-old Illinois state law aiming to boost teacher diversity, known as the Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship Program, is being challenged in court by public interest law firm Pacific Legal Foundation, which claims the program discriminates against nonminorities. A motion to dismiss the case is still pending in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois. 

Since the program’s beginnings in 1992, 13,000 scholarships have been awarded to aspiring teachers through the Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship Program, said Bravetta Hassell, director of communications for Advance Illinois, an organization that supports the state’s scholarship program.

Applicants must be a minority student to receive the scholarships, which are “intended to help diversify the teaching pool and provide a supply of well-qualified and diverse teachers for hard-to-staff schools,” according to the program’s website.

Over the last decade, teaching candidates of color have jumped from 20% to 36% in Illinois, Hassell said. That’s not enough, considering over half of all K-12 public school students in the state are students of color compared to just 18% of the state’s teachers being educators of color, she added.

‘Tread carefully’

The lawsuit challenging MTI alleges that not allowing nonminority students to receive a scholarship on the basis of race is a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. For Erin Wilcox, senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, MTI is a pretty clear example of a government program that gives out a benefit based on race.

Since the Supreme Court’s ruling against race-based admissions practices in 2023, Wilcox said, courts are starting to implement a stricter standard for when the government can discriminate on the basis of race for many different programs. 

The latest challenge against the MTI program “is one more example of how states have really got to take a hard look at their laws and start cleaning up their act” as they approach similar programs that promote teacher diversity, Wilcox said.   

“The race-based programs, ones that specifically admit or exclude applicants based on their race, I think those are on a collision course with the U.S. Constitution. I think it’s unavoidable,” Wilcox said.

While schools “desperately” need teachers nationwide, Wilcox said, districts and states need to continue encouraging people to become teachers — but “you can’t do it based on the race of the person who’s applying for your program.”

Though there’s promising research on the importance of having a diverse teaching staff, districts should “tread carefully,” on teacher diversity initiatives, which are now increasingly at risk of potential legal scrutiny, said Mike Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a nonprofit education policy think tank.

Districts have to make sure their policies and practices don’t discriminate against Black or Hispanic teachers, Petrilli said. While they seek to expand their pipeline to include those candidates, districts must also avoid discriminating against White or Asian teachers. Rather, he said, the district workforce strategy should be “opening the door to everybody.”

The point, Petrilli said, should be, “How can we get as close to a non-discriminatory approach and a non-biased approach as possible, and can that help us improve our diversity?”

School districts in California have laid off over 1,200 teachers ahead of the 2025-26 school year, according to the California Teachers Association. The sweeping layoffs come as districts across the state see declining enrollment and no longer have access to federal emergency pandemic funds. 

Some 1,246 certificated staff were laid off across 92 districts in the state, CTA confirmed in a Wednesday email. Some of those positions impacted by the layoffs may include teachers, nurses, counselors, school psychologists, speech and language pathologists, and librarians.

While teacher layoffs are especially pronounced in California right now, it’s expected that “most states are going to struggle with” K-12 budget and staffing challenges given nationwide enrollment declines and reduced state and federal funding, said Marguerite Roza, a research professor and director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University.

The widespread layoffs in California are happening amid “a historic national teacher shortage,” said David Goldberg, president of CTA, in an emailed statement on June 5. 

“We are firm believers that there are no overstaffed schools in our state,” Goldberg said. “Our students deserve smaller class sizes, more support, not less. Layoffs further exacerbate issues in our schools, including creating a climate where young people don’t see teaching or other education jobs as viable careers.”

Roza, however, said the teacher shortage narrative “is outdated.” As school districts lay off staff and don't fill open positions, the idea of teacher shortages remains “hard for many places to let go” of, she said. While there are still high-need positions to be filled in areas like special education, Roza said, districts overall appear to be mostly “staffed up.”

Layoffs have recently been underway throughout California, including in Santa Ana Unified School District, Pasadena Unified School District and Berkeley Unified School District, according to news reports. Still, some of those districts are considering rescinding — or have already rescinded — some of the pink slips sent to staff earlier this year.

For instance, following community pushback on Berkeley USD’s plan to lay off 204 employees, the district announced at a May 7 school board meeting that it had pulled back 166 of those RIF notices. Still, the district faces a nearly $8 million budget deficit. 

Because the teacher layoff landscape varies widely across districts, a spokesperson for the California Department of Education declined to comment on the cause for the high number.

State data, however, shows that student enrollment fell 2.8%, from 6 million to 5.8 million, between the 2020-21 and 2024-25 school years. 

With school boards now in the midst of approving budgets, Roza said board members often feel community pressure not to carry out proposed cuts. But unless funds are rolled back elsewhere in the budget, districts would have to dip into financial reserves “and potentially make the district’s financial position more precarious going forward,” she said.

Roza suggested that districts protect their reserves especially given uncertainty over federal K-12 funds moving forward. If districts use up their reserves, they risk the potential of local or state government takeover, she said.

School districts nationwide began bracing last year for potential layoffs and budget challenges as the deadline to obligate federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief dollars approached on Sept. 30, 2024.

During the pandemic, districts hired a flood of uncertified teachers with the additional federal COVID-19 emergency dollars and as most states waived teacher certification requirements.  Roza suggested that districts evaluate those teachers closely when making future staffing decisions, especially in the face of potential layoffs.

“You don’t have to keep them. If they’re great, keep them,” Roza said. “If not, this is the time to let them go and then go back to the labor market, because the labor market is being rebuilt, and you may have an opportunity to be choosier in terms of your hiring.”

As school districts process teacher contracts for the 2025-26 school year, uncertainty is stirring among some district leaders who hire teachers from outside the country.

In late May, a Politico report surfaced that Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered all U.S. diplomatic and consular posts to stop scheduling new appointments for student visa or exchange visitors through the F, M and J visa programs. That pause includes teachers, summer counselors, and others who tap into J-1 visas to temporarily work for up to 5 years in the U.S.

State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a May 29 press briefing that the pause is temporary and that “there is an end point, and it should be rather quick.” Several days later, in a June 3 briefing, Bruce said that no student or exchange visa appointments were canceled, and there will be an update on the situation “in a matter of days.”

Still, any kind of delay in setting up new J-1 visa appointments could impact some districts’ ability to get teachers in the classroom on time for the beginning of the new school year, said Tara Thomas, government affairs manager at AASA, the School Superintendents Association.

“Schools are putting together their contracts now for staffing and figuring out what their staffing looks like, where they need to fill their gaps, what contracts they need to extend,” Thomas said. “We’re hoping that, one, the delay is not long and they’re able to get this process back up and running quickly. But also, we would love to see the administration maybe prioritize teachers as they work through the backlog.”

In 2023, there were nearly 6,800 J-1 teachers nationwide, according to a recent analysis of State Department data by AFL-CIO’s Department for Professional Employees. The number of J-1 teachers jumped 154% between 2016 and 2023, with the highest concentration being in North Carolina, Texas, Florida, South Carolina, Arizona and California, the analysis found.

For some extremely rural districts, like Nevada’s Mineral County School District, even a temporary pause on J-1 visa appointments is nerve-wracking, said Stephanie Keuhey, the district’s superintendent. Keuhey said she’s particularly concerned that her new J-1 visa teachers won’t be approved in time or will arrive after the first day of school. 

Mineral County School District recently extended five offer letters to teachers — one from Ghana and four from the Philippines — through the J-1 visa program, Keuhey said. The 520-student Title I school district already has 15 J-1 visa teachers. Including the new hires for the 2025-26 school year, 45% of the districts’ 44 teachers will hold J-1 visas, she said.

“I'm worried about next year and what might come of those five offer letters,” Keuhey said. “Four of them are elementary level teachers, and so that means bigger class sizes in those critical grades where the foundational reading skills and math skills are taught.”

Mineral County School District has struggled for years with declining student enrollment and teacher recruitment and retention issues, given its location in such a rural and “frontier” area of Nevada. 

The district began hiring J-1 teachers about four years ago, Keuhey said. Most of the teachers hired through the federal visa exchange program come into the district with a master’s or doctorate degree and over 10 years of teaching experience.

When a teaching position opens at the district, Keuhey said she’ll often only see a handful of American applicants compared to hundreds of J-1 applicants.

“We've tried several things over the years — combining intermediate classes, departmentalization — but the reality is we just are not getting qualified United States applicants,” Keuhey said.