The Texas Education Agency (TEA) announced Thursday the creation of the Teacher Vacancy Task Force to help address staffing challenges facing Texas public schools.

While the continued population growth of Texas was already contributing to a staffing shortage in some of the state’s urban and suburban public-school districts, COVID has only further amplified this challenge as spikes in COVID cases have led to many public schools across Texas being short-staffed and unable to find substitute teachers to help fill in where needed.

Appointed to the Teacher Vacancy Task Force from our area is Dave Lewis, Superintendent of the Rochelle School District.  He joins 27 other school administrators, teachers and school resource officers to look into the following.

• Understand the challenges districts are currently facing related to teacher vacancies
• Share best practices for addressing critical teacher vacancy and shortage areas, including exploring opportunities for certification, placement, and hiring flexibilities
• Develop recommendations for regulatory or other policy changes for TEA
• Provide feedback on TEA initiatives designed to help impact vacancies

TEA plans to have a designated teacher panel in future Task Force meetings to ensure that the agency is receiving guidance and feedback from a diverse and representative range of teachers across Texas.