RD272 - Commonwealth of Virginia Critical Shortage Teaching Endorsement Areas for 2011-2012 School Year


Executive Summary:
The Appropriation Act (Item 131, paragraph H.1, Chapter 874, 2010 Acts of Assembly), requires the Department of Education to report annually to the General Assembly on the critical teaching shortage areas in Virginia. In response to this requirement, data were obtained from the Supply and Demand Survey for School Personnel sent by the Department of Education to each of Virginia’s school division superintendents in October 2009, to determine qualifications for teachers and administrators. Information requested on the survey was based on school data reports as of October 1, 2009. These data were used to determine 2011-2012 critical shortage teaching endorsement areas in Virginia.

In Virginia, “critical shortage” may be defined in two ways: (1) shortages by subject matter as designated from the top 10 academic disciplines identified in an annual survey of school divisions; or, (2) a school personnel vacancy for which a school division receives three or fewer qualified candidates for a position. Determination of critical shortages in specific teaching endorsement areas and their rankings are dependent on the method of calculation used. As such, specific shortage areas identified will differ among school divisions (i.e., geographic regions) and statewide analysis of subject matter designations.

The 2011-2012 top 10 critical shortage teaching endorsement areas identified statewide were determined based on method number one as noted above and prescribed methodology for designation of teacher shortage areas outlined by the U.S. Department of Education. The top 10 critical shortage teaching endorsement areas will be reported to the Virginia Retirement System and will be used to determine candidate eligibility for the Virginia Teaching Scholarship Loan Program. Endorsement areas were ranked according to the most severe academic teaching shortage areas.

The ranking is based on an aggregation of the following: a) total number of teaching positions that are unfilled; b) teaching positions that are filled by provisionally licensed teachers; and c) teaching positions that are filled by teachers who are licensed, but who are teaching in academic subject areas other than their area of preparation.

Data analyses include calculated rankings in the three areas noted as of October 1, 2009, as reported in the 2009-2010 Supply and Demand Survey for School Personnel. All 132 school divisions responded to the survey. A total of 98,742 full-time equivalent (FTE) teaching positions as of October 1, 2009, were reported for SY2009-2010 in the Instructional Personnel and Licensure annual data collection for school divisions. The percentage of FTE teaching positions for all rankings is less than the five percent limit allowed by the U. S. Department of Education. Rankings were totaled and the resulting sum ranked to determine teaching area shortages.