Nevada governor signs emergency regulation to address statewide teacher shortage

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak signed an emergency regulation on the request of the Fee on Skilled Requirements in Schooling to assist tackle educator workforce shortages, based on an announcement Monday.

The emergency regulation reduces the price of a substitute educating license from $180 for preliminary licenses and $150 for renewal licenses to $100 for all substitute educating licenses. The emergency regulation permits the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to increase expiration dates of sure provisional educator licenses for as much as 6 months, making certain over 600 educators can proceed educating this fall.

“I wish to thank the Fee on Skilled Requirements and Governor Sisolak for taking motion to assist tackle Nevada’s educator workforce shortages,” mentioned Jhone Ebert, State Superintendent of Public Instruction. “The Nevada Division of Schooling is dedicated to partnering with districts and colleges, conventional and various educator preparation packages, educator associations, and different stakeholders to proceed to help instructor recruitment and retention efforts Statewide.”

“Directors, academics, and college workers are charged with the care of Nevada’s most precious asset – our kids,” mentioned Governor Sisolak. “I’m grateful to the Fee on Skilled Requirements for figuring out a chance to handle faculty staffing shortages this fall as a result of all kids deserve entry to caring and certified adults.”

The Fee on Skilled Requirements in Schooling is an 11-member public physique with oversight of educator licensure {and professional} studying necessities. State regulation mandates that the Fee can not set charges of lower than $100 for educator licenses. Energetic obligation and retired army personnel, veterans, and their spouses are eligible for a $50 low cost on licensure charges. Please be aware the Nevada Division of Schooling is unable to regulate or refund charges which have already been paid.

Extra efforts by the Nevada Division of Schooling to help educator recruitment and retention embody:

— NDE has invested over $2M of the Elementary and Secondary Faculty Emergency Aid (ESSER) funds to launch Profession and Technical Schooling (CTE) Instructing and Coaching packages in 9 further excessive colleges throughout 4 rural counties. CTE Instructing and Coaching packages encourage Nevada’s highschool college students to think about careers as educators in Nevada as early as ninth grade. Upon finishing highschool, graduates can instantly be employed as a paraprofessional (instructor assistant) within the classroom whereas they proceed to pursue educator preparation to turn out to be licensure-ready. Within the 2021-22 faculty yr, over 3,600 college students have been enrolled on this CTE pathway, which is out there in over 50 excessive colleges.

— NDE has invested over $20M of ESSER funds to launch the Incentivizing Pathways to Instructing grant program that can profit as much as 3,800 future educators. This program gives tuition help of $2,000 to help pre-service educators who’re of their closing three semesters in addition to stipends of $8,400 ($700 per week for 12 weeks) to help educators who’re pupil academics. Recipients should agree to show in a Nevada public faculty for 2 years. This grant enhances the Train Nevada Scholarship, which awards as much as $24,000 in scholarship funds to future educators who meet sure standards.

— NDE is supporting a partnership between the College of Nevada, Las Vegas and Clark County Faculty District to allow present faculty paraprofessionals to earn credit score in direction of licensure by means of an accelerated 12-month program whereas sustaining their paid positions. To this point, the Paraprofessionals Pathways Undertaking has admitted and supported greater than 100 college students on their journeys to turn out to be licensed, full-time academics in Southern Nevada colleges. A abstract of further federal reduction funding efforts to help instructor recruitment and retention is out there.

In October 2019, NDE was awarded one in all six aggressive federal grants totaling $10 million over a five-year interval from the U.S. Division of Schooling (USED) to help Faculty-Primarily based Psychological Well being Providers (SBMHS). The main focus of this grant is on recruitment, retention, and re-specialization of psychological well being suppliers in colleges, with an emphasis on rising linguistic range and serving susceptible learners. NDE has partnered with the College of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the College of Nevada, Reno (UNR), and Nevada State Faculty (NSC) in lots of the recruitment and re-specialization methods. NDE has additionally awarded funding on to many districts and constitution colleges to help hiring incentives, relocation stipends, area placement incentives for present college and faculty college students, and medical internship incentives for grasp’s degree licensees.

Nevada’s Instructor Recruitment and Retention Advisory Process Power was established by the Legislature in 2019 and consists of instructor representatives from every of our 17 faculty districts to the Process Power. The Process Power findings and proposals have been offered to the Legislature’s Joint Interim Standing Committee on Schooling in June 2022. The Process Power’s report included 16 suggestions throughout 5 areas: knowledge, messaging/branding and transparency, eradicating limitations, wage/compensation/advantages, and strategic use of funding.