Bacon's Rebellion

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Teacher Shortages – a Tale of Three Virginia Beach Elementary Schools

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by

sherlockj
in

by James C. Sherlock

I offer for your consideration a tale of three Virginia Beach elementary schools and their teacher shortages.

The data provided are from the school quality databases of the Virginia Department of Education and from the jobs database of the City of Virginia Beach Schools, accessed this morning.

All three of the elementary schools I chose for this sample were near where I lived and worked when I was on active duty in the Navy.

John B. Dye Elementary is an extremely high performing school, Trantwood Elementary is a high performing school, and Birdneck Elementary a low performing school in the state SOL assessments.  Birdneck is a Title 1 school.  Virginia Beach has 17 Title 1 schools, all but one of them elementary schools.

The data in this very small sample show gaping differences in currently open teaching and counselor positions among those three schools. They are not only in the same school division, but within the same zip code.

John B. Dye and Birdneck are 18 minutes apart by car with Trantwood in between. Each is within easy commute distance for the same set of available teachers and counselors. Because of the high availability of Navy spouses, this area tends to have no shortage of teachers.

The relative poverty levels of the student bodies differ, but not as greatly as among many other state public schools, again because of the effects of the Navy on the economy of Virginia Beach in general and the 23451 zip code in particular.

Chronic absenteeism differences reflecting the learning environments in each school, on the other hand, are profound.

There is more to school climate than data will show, but I think readers will find the information thought-provoking.

Bottom line: Teachers and counselors appear to have bailed on Birdneck Elementary, but not on John B. Dye or Trantwood.

I offer a sampling of the data offered in the state school quality databases. Readers can access the full quality data for each school at the links provided.

Birdneck Elementary School – Poor Performing on SOLs.  Title 1 school.

Near Oceana Naval Air Station

Students 2020-21 — 611

FTE regular teachers — 51.2
FTE regular teachers sought — 10

FTE Counselors — no data
FTE Counselors sought — 0.9

FTE Special Education Teachers — 12
FTE Special Education Teachers sought — 4

Chronic Absenteeism 2018-19 — 13.9%
Chronic Absenteeism 2020-21 — 35.2%

Free and Reduced Meal Eligible Students: 2020-2021 — 32.5%

Authorized teacher (regular and special ed) / student ratio in 2020/21 was 10.3 to 1.

John B. Dye Elementary School –– Extremely High Performing on SOLs

On Broad Bay Near Cox High School

Students 2020-21 — 728

FTE Teachers — 43.6
FTE Teachers sought — 0

FTE Counselors — no data
FTE Counselors sought — 0.2

Special Education Teachers — 7
Special Education Teachers sought — 0

Chronic Absenteeism 2018-19 — 5.5%
Chronic Absenteeism 2020-21 — 3.5%

Free and Reduced Meal Eligible Students: 2020-2021 — 18.1%

Authorized teacher (regular and special ed) / student ratio in 2020/21 was 14.4 to 1.

Trantwood Elementary — High Performing on SOLs

On Great Neck Peninsula

Students 2020-21 — 446

FTE Teachers — 34.7
FTE Teachers sought — 1

FTE Counselors — no data
FTE Counselors sought — 0

Special Education Teachers — 6
Special Education Teachers sought — 0

Chronic Absenteeism 2018-19 — 6.3%
Chronic Absenteeism 2020-21 — 3.5%

Free and Reduced Meal Eligible Students: 2020-2021 — 21.7%

Authorized teacher (regular and special ed) / student ratio in 2020/21 was 11 to 1.

Discussion: This is not a large enough sample size to generalize about staffing shortages in Virginia schools. Some entire school divisions in other parts of the state have broader school staffing issues compared to Virginia Beach.

But if nothing else, this survey of three elementary schools in Virginia Beach shows that when we discuss teacher shortages, many can be very localized.

And averaging teacher shortages for a large school division and then attempting to assess the effects of shortages on the “average” school is folly.

Same goes for chronic absenteeism in the “average” school, or nearly anything else.  No teacher can teach with the enormous absentee rate experienced at Birdneck Elementary.

There is no such thing as the average school.

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27 responses to “Teacher Shortages – a Tale of Three Virginia Beach Elementary Schools”

  1. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead

    Leadership at the school could be an issue. I remember most teachers I worked with in Loudoun were drawn to their school first by good leadership and next by commute time.

    1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      One obvious factor was the soaring truancy at Birdneck. No teacher can teach under those conditions. I intend to follow up and ping the system on what antitruancy measures were used. State law permits referral of the kids’ parents to J&D court. I will guess that was seldom done.

      1. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
        James Wyatt Whitehead

        J and D courts seem to ping cases of truancy back to the schools these days.

        A website called Great Schools allows parents to post a review. I don’t put a lot of weight into this. Usually, a parent either loves or hates the school. Trantwood seems to have the best feedback from parents.
        https://www.greatschools.org/virginia/virginia-beach/1807-Birdneck-Elementary-School/reviews/
        https://www.greatschools.org/virginia/virginia-beach/1765-John-B.-Dey-Elementary-School/reviews/
        https://www.greatschools.org/virginia/virginia-beach/1791-Trantwood-Elementary-School/#Reviews

        1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
          James C. Sherlock

          My now 50-year old daughter went there. It was wonderful when she did.

  2. Bubba1855 Avatar
    Bubba1855

    ditto leadership…

  3. NotJohnConnor Avatar
    NotJohnConnor

    Without looking at the webpages of the schools, I’d be highly surprised if leadership at one didn’t attempt to implement an “equity” agenda that destroyed both teacher and student motivation, and led to increased disruptions in class. My experience in NPN suggests that a simple leadership change at principal level can destroy a formerly excellent school.

  4. JayCee Avatar
    JayCee

    http://www.StudentsFirstVA.com is getting signatures to recall the hard left majority on the VB school board.

    1. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
      James Wyatt Whitehead

      There is little chance of success on that path. The best bet is to recruit a slate of candidates now for the fall 2023 school board elections. Start building a war chest. The other team already has one.

  5. ARL Avatar
    ARL

    I’m trying to understand student-teacher (FTE) ratios:

    Birdneck 11.9

    Dye 16.7

    Trantwood 12.9

    If you add in FTE teachers sought:
    B 10.0
    D 16.7
    T 12.5

    What’s up with that disparity?

    1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      I did a poor job of presenting the data. Please see the revised article. I did the math on student/teacher (the sum of regular plus special ed teachers) ratios for readers.

      Birdneck is a Title 1 school, which it has a lower ratio of students to students. Sorry it was not clearer.

      I added the Title 1 discussion to the article. Thanks for pointing out the issues.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        I figured that also. FTE on a per school basis is not going to be exact anyhow. The year-to-year size of the classes with vary as will the needs of the kids, and you have one teacher per classroom but then paras and reading/math specialists depending on circumstances.

        it’s probably not a good way to try to understand staffing between schools.

        1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
          James C. Sherlock

          The reason that Trantwood had such a low student/teacher ratio is that a lot fewer kids enrolled in 2020-21 than were expected to do so. The teacher rosters are set well before the door open. There may not be extra teachers if the skills distribution in a small elementary like that are still needed. It’s like inviting kids to a party. You never really know how many will show up.

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            and you never real know their needs. If they have deficits, they will need specialists and if class is large and/or diverse will need paras.

  6. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    where do low performing schools come from – especially when in the same district that has high performing schools?

    This same problem exists in places like Henrico and Chesterfield.

    And yet, some say it comes down to leadership at each school.

    Sherlock answered JAB – “chicken/egg” on truancy.

    looks like chicken/egg on school performance in general, no?

    Sherlock is a military guy. They do something in the military that addresses the connection between leadership and performance. They often and usually transfer leaders after a stint at a location. Off they go to the next duty station. Doing that, they often fix problems because they know after transfers where the problem is and new leaders transferring in – are expected to address them.

  7. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    I wonder if truancy is the critical variable. If unmotivated kids aren’t in school, at least they aren’t starting fights and disrupting the classroom. Teachers might actually prefer their problem kids to be truant. I suspect that truancy is a proxy for problem kids. If truancy rates are high, that means the school has a lot of kids who are unmotivated, often defiant, and don’t have parents who back up the teachers. At the very least, these seem like logical questions to ask — but the educational establishment never asks them.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      Schools that serve low income neighborhoods where many/most of the parents have poor educations and and low income – will see kids that are living in less stable households and less motivated than kids of well-educated, higher income parents.

      No teacher nor principal will pick such a school as their first pick of where to work. A long-term career there is problematical.

      No surprise that they have staff turnover. Teachers will leave there whenever they can and their replacements won’t be top-tier candidates.

      1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
        James C. Sherlock

        Sounds like surrender. I am not of that mind. Remember Success Academies.

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          No, not surrender but realistically understanding /recognizing what is going on – and what solutions are available/ possible – and recognizing that district-wide lottery Lab/voucher schools may not be an effective solution.

          There is no question that public schools are not uniformly effective at teaching kids of poorly educated/low income parents.

          That’s a fact.

          The question is – are the proposed voucher schools aka “success academies”, LAB schools going to fix it and if so , how?

          Success Academies are lotteries for only the at-risk kids, right? What happens to the “unmotivated” kids that don’t do well at Success, do they get booted and replaced?

          We’re just going from the frying pan into the fire if we don’t really know just how these other schools will work.

          1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
            James C. Sherlock

            Lab schools might show us something that we haven’t seen, but they just as likely will be free schools for faculty kids. S|A has already shown what works. That is the difference. S/A is a tough course of instruction with tough rules, but it builds successful scholars from kids of the least fortunate backgrounds with the help of those kids’ parent, parents or guardians. That is miraculous, and yet we can’t seem to acknowledge it, much less try to emulate it. Do your own research. Log on to the S/A website and spend some time exploring.

          2. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            Oh I think Success “works” for some kids but my understanding is that if the kids do not have success, they are booted and sent back to the public schools that are blamed for not succeeding with them – also.

            I give credit to the kids they succeed with but I don’t think the success model – if expanded to serve all kids – i.e. no need for lottery – all are eligible – not all kids will be allowed to enroll and others that do will not follow the “rules” – and Success will “fail” with these kids the same way public schools are.

            Success is succeeding with a small percentage of kids – it’s not a proven model for all at-risk kids.

            What is the drop-out rate for Success?

          3. James C. Sherlock Avatar
            James C. Sherlock

            Larry, you seem to miss a key point on school discipline. If public schools do not get control of the learning environment, parents will wind up shutting them all down and demanding vouchers to every kid.

            Virginia Beach public schools have 3,000 fewer students than 2 years ago. 3,000. What is that about other than parents will not let their kids go to some of our less controlled schools even for free. And Virginia Beach, as a system, is among the top performing school divisions in Virginia. But no kid attends a school division, he attends his neighborhood school. It it is chaotic or dangerous or both for a child, his parents are going to pull him out. So would you.

            Success educates both academically and socially kids who would otherwise have no chance in life. A foundation for that is maintaining order and respect in the classroom and strict attendance policies.

            Tight discipline is key to their success by creating an environment in which most students can thrive. Parents choose those schools because they want an orderly, safe classroom environment.

            Traditional public schools need to do the same thing. The large majority of kids who are ready to obey rules and learn cannot continue to be held hostage to those who cannot or will not. That is the role, in the larger school districts, of alternative schools.

            The catastrophic progressive “restorative justice” policies of the left assure that teachers can’t teach and kids can’t learn.

            All you need to do is look at the gang-related assault in-school punishments recommended by the Model Guidelines for Virginia schools to understand the boundless insanity that it represents.

            Does Success Academy suspend some kids and expel a few? Yes. The world-class success of all the other children depends upon it.

            Should Virginia public schools suspend and expel kids who simply won’t behave from regular schools and provide alternative schools for them? Or at home remote instruction? Or in school remote instruction? God I hope so.

            Start with gang members. Just a thought.

            So this discussion about school discipline should not be about what Success Academy public schools do, but rather about what some traditional public schools do not do.

          4. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            I don’t think discipline is the only issue nor and overriding one at all low-performing schools and I do not think it is a big issue in elementary schools.

            You’ll have to show data that backs up that premise. middle and high school – yes, but elementary, I’m skeptical.

            I question the premise that low performing elementary schools are due to discipline issues; that if public schools booted 10 yr old kids, the remaining kids would learn and succeed.

            Kids of poorly-educated , low-income parents do not learn the same way that kids of well-educated, higher income parents learn – separate from discipline issues.

            From what I read , and i do read, Even Success Academy has a drop-out rate of kids who do not succeed even though they are stricter on rules and have less discipline issues.

            In elementary schools – where kids learn to read, the discipline issues are not the same as the ones in middle and high school. The problem is more in how well the kids learn to read if they have parents who are not well-educated and don’t read to their kids at home.

            If a child does not learn to read well , and as a consequence does poorly on academics, they then can become a discipline problem in the later grades.

            But this is not new – it’s been a problem for a long time – I’m sure you remember the TV Show Welcome Back Kotter or “To Sir with Love” or many, many other shows and movies that highlighted the discipline issues in high schools.

            But elementary schools?

          5. James C. Sherlock Avatar
            James C. Sherlock

            You wrote: “I don’t think discipline is the only issue nor and overriding one at all low-performing schools and I do not think it is a big issue in elementary schools.”

            You live a sheltered existence.

    2. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      Chicken or egg situation. What comes first, truancy or poor school?

      The issue in elementary school is that the poorly motivated students are absent a lot, but come back, and are not absent enough to make a teacher’s job easier the way you suggest.

      Net of all that, I favor strict truancy policies and strict enforcement of those policies. So do the teachers I know.

      It is probably not a coincidence that in the very summer after the 2020-21 school year, the Virginia Beach School Board adopted a strict truancy policy. The School Board regulation punted those rules to the superintendent before that time.

      I have submitted a FOIA to the VB schools to provide me with the superintendent’s policies in force in 2020-21.

      When I get it, I will see if it was in compliance with Code of Virginia § 22.1-258. Appointment of attendance officers; notification when pupil fails to report to school; plan; conference; court proceedings.

  8. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Is this an example of public schools “failing” when 2 are good and 1 is not?

    And, in response, we’d create a “Lab” school that enrolls by lottery for all kids in the district not just the kids in the low performing school?

    So the new Lab school enrollment is a mixture of kids from the high performing schools and the low performing school?

    And where do you get the leadership and teachers for the new voucher school?

    What happens to the kids in the low performing school that did not win the lottery and it was kids from the high performing schools that beat them out on the lottery?

    How do lab schools where the money “follows the kid’ work in this kind of situation?

    1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      The answer is that the lab schools are a total crap shoot. Some will prove to be winners, some not. The program should have started with a couple of pilot schools.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        VDOE has some specifics at their site. Apparently, they not only do not restrict enrollment to at-risk – it’s everyone – these schools CAN charge fees for special classes , etc – putting those out of reach for the low income.

        VDOE, under Youngkin’s new appointees will be interesting and I’m not optimistic at all.

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