NJACTE officers Drs. LaChan Hannon and Stacey Leftwich as well as Daniel Tulino, an assistant professor at Stockton University, participated in and presented at the 2024 annual fall meeting of the Teacher Education Council of State Colleges and Universities (TECSCU), which was held in St. Paul, Minnesota. TECSCU is an affiliate with AACTE, and its mission is to advance and enhance high quality educator preparation within comprehensive public colleges and university. The meeting’s theme was CALL TO ACTION: Educator Shortages & Support. Drs. Hannon, Leftwich and Tulino’s presentation titled Taking Action: The Creation and Implementation of a Convening on Diversifying the Educator Workforce described why the annual New Jersey convening was created, structures, strategies and practices created to implement a convening, and lessons learned over the last seven years the convening has taken place.
Dr. Danielle Edwards from Old Dominion University provided the meeting’s keynote address, Localized Challenges, Tailored Solutions: How Educator Preparation Programs Can Help Tackle Teacher Shortages. In her keynote, Dr. Edwards explained that teacher staffing challenges highly vary between regions, districts, schools and subjects. To solve the teacher shortage, educators and EPPs must target schools experiencing shortages and be tailored to the specific challenges faced. EPPs can influence the teacher supply, not only by producing highly qualified teachers, but by sharing where and what subject teachers choose to teach. Dr. Edwards challenged EPPs to advocate for timely and detailed teacher shortage state data as well as improved working conditions and increased teacher compensation, two drivers of teacher shortages.