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Illinois schools are seeing more teachers enter the classroom, but school leaders still believe the teacher shortage is an issue, according to a report released Monday.
The Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools and the State Board of Education, along with the Illinois Workforce of Research Collaborative and Goshen Consulting, collaborated to collect data on staffing shortages across the state for the two surveys contained in the report.
In its survey of unfilled positions, the state board found that Illinois had 1,877 more classroom teachers in the 2023-24 school year than in the previous school year — for a total of 136,092 educators. As of Oct. 1, 2024, the state board found 3,864 unfilled positions for the current school year, a 5.6% decrease from the previous year. The state’s vacancy rate for the current school year is 2.8%, down from 3% in 2023-24.
But, despite the increase in teachers, 87% of the 734 school leaders surveyed by the regional superintendents association in the fall of 2024 believe there is a problem with teacher shortages. Forty percent of the leaders who responded, 281 out of 698, said their need for educators has increased from last school year, and 64% of those who answered a question about the needs for the next school year believe their need for more educators will grow.
About 92% of school leaders — or 1,029 out of 1,120 school entities — responded to the state board’s unfilled positions survey and 71% — or 790 out of 1,120 — responded to the superintendents association’s Educator Shortage Survey.
The state’s unfilled positions data also found that special education teacher and bilingual education teacher positions were often unfilled. The unfilled positions data found that English language arts, math, and science were among the top three subjects where classroom teachers were needed.
School leaders reported using “alternative measures” to bridge the gap in services. Some of these measures included hiring retired teachers and substitutes, changing classes offered to students, or shifting teacher responsibilities. About 26% of those who responded to a question about solutions used to make up for the unfilled special education teacher slots reported increasing the caseload of existing employees.
There is a need for more substitutes, according to the association of regional superintendent’s survey. About 91% of school leaders who responded to this question reported having a severe substitute teacher shortage.
Some barriers to increasing the number of teachers include not having qualified applicants or having few people apply for open positions according to the survey. Around 43% of school leaders who answered said no or few qualified applicants applied for open positions, while 71% of respondents say they had few to no applicants for classroom teacher positions. The survey reports school leaders citing salary and pension benefits, poor working conditions, location, and difficulty with recruitment or retention as other causes for the teacher shortage.
The regional superintendents association’s survey also looked at what school districts did with federal COVID-19 relief funding. The state received more than $7 billion in emergency funding that was largely distributed to school districts to help students recover from the pandemic. Those funds dried up in the fall of 2024.
About 362 of 722 education leaders said they did not use funds to create or support staffing positions. However, some schools used the funds to create full-time positions, additional pay for current staff, and part-time positions. A small number of positions and benefits will be cut next school year, according to school leaders who responded.
Gary Tipsord, executive director of the regional superintendents association, said in an interview on Tuesday that despite the progress highlighted in the report, school leaders still have some concern when it comes to teacher shortages.
“We still have an overwhelming majority of educational leaders in the state that feel like the problem is persistent,” said Tipsord. “Even when we’re able to fill the jobs, there’s this sense that that problem is still lurking around the corner.”
The state board, local school districts, state lawmakers, and Gov. J.B. Pritzker have increased funding, changed policy, or created programs to increase the number of educators in classrooms in previous years.
The state created a $45 million grant, known as the Teacher Vacancy Grant, to support 170 school districts that struggled to fill in teacher positions. Recent reports from the state and the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative found that the grant has been successful in hiring about 5,400 new educators and retained around 11,000 additional teachers. Pritzker’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 also includes $45 million for the program.
In previous years, Chicago Public Schools funded efforts to recruit and support aspiring educators and especially teachers of color, including Teach Chicago Tomorrow, which recruits CPS students into the teacher pipeline.
Pritzker has also increased funding for the Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship, which awards grants to students of color in college and universities who aspire to be teachers. Recipients have to teach at an Illinois school with at least 30% of students of color for one year after graduating from college. However, the scholarship program is currently being challenged in court.
Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.
