Jose de Wit
SUN Staff Writer
A lack of licensed teachers means substitutes are teaching classes in at least five Española School District schools to start the school year, according to District documents.
Superintendent David Cockerham blamed an unusual amount of teacher retirements and resignations over the summer for District’s teacher staffing woes. Cockerham said he overstaffed the District at the end of last school year, hiring five more teachers than there were available vacancies. But while the District hired 27 teachers between May and August, it lost 33 teachers during the same period of time, according to personnel documents. That left the District short-staffed by the time the beginning of the school year rolled around.
“Next time, I’m going to overshoot by 10,” Cockerham said. “Honestly, there’s nothing we could have done about that. Come on, we couldn’t foresee that, that all those people were going to leave.”
Long-term substitutes are filling at least six teacher and three teacher assistants vacancies, according to reports submitted by each school’s principal. But those reports are not comprehensive. They do not account for the fifth-grade teacher vacancy in Hernandez Elementary, for example.
In that school, the same group of students has been without a permanent teacher for two years now.
Last school year, one of the school’s two fourth-grade teachers left in January for another job, Principal Benjamin Gurulé said. A string of five separate substitutes taught the class for the remainder of the school year.
The same group of students returned this school year as fifth-graders, with newly-rehired Norbert Lopez as their teacher. Lopez was the District’s superintendent from 1966 to 1971 and returned as a teacher at the start of this school year, according District personnel documents. A month into the school year, Lopez was put on administrative leave and replaced by a substitute, District documents state.
Cockerham declined to say why Lopez was removed from the classroom.
Gurulé said Hernandez’s other fifth-grade teacher, Ernest Shaw, is sharing his lesson plans with the substitute and supervising from time to time. Gurulé also visits the class several times a day, he said. Still, the situation is far from ideal.
“The difference is obvious,” Gurulé said. “They’re missing out on some of their education. But we’re trying the best we can to deal with the situation.”
Meanwhile, Gurulé said he is searching for a replacement teacher, or at least a well-qualified substitute, maybe a retired teacher who still holds a permanent teaching license, he said.
State law requires college-level coursework to obtain a permanent teaching license, but minimum requirements for a substitute teacher’s license are little more than a high school diploma or General Education Diploma (GED).
While principals using long-term substitutes acknowledge a certified teacher would serve students better, most argue their substitutes are well-qualified.
At Española Valley High School, for example, substitute Patricia Trujillo does the job of a special education English teacher. Principal Bruce Hopmeier said Trujillo’s on-and-off experience over three years working as a substitute puts her in the league of a “regular teacher.”
“She’s been around, and she’s doing an excellent job,” Hopmeier said. “She’s not somebody cold off the streets.”
At Española middle school, Principal Lewis Johnson made a similar argument. Though he said he would replace long-term substitute Abel Marquez if a certified teacher came along, he said Marquez is doing a good job as a math teacher.
Marquez, who taught science at Española seventh grade school as a long-term substitute most of last school year, said he has a master’s degree in business management. He said his lack of a license is not as much an obstacle for him as the fact that he was assigned to teach one of the middle school’s toughest classes: teaching remedial math to students one or more grade levels behind.
Abiquiú Elementary Principal David Maestas also pointed out that his school’s fifth-grade long-term substitute is working on obtaining teaching license as soon as Novemenber, provided she passes a state licensure exam.
The District did not immediately provide documents showing the educational background and experience of current long-term substitutes.
In Velarde Elementary, the lack of qualified teachers translates to an extra-large fifth-grade class, according to enrollment data.
Velarde has 31 fifth-graders this year, nine more than the school’s next largest grade and all taught in the same classroom by Jimmy Lara.
State class size requirements do not establish a maximum number of students per teacher for fifth-grade classes. Instead, state law requires only that the average class size for grades four through six must amount to no more than 24 students. Because Velarde Elementary has 20 fourth-graders and 17 sixth-graders, the fourth-through-sixth grade range meets state requirements with an average enrollment of 23.
The situation leaves Velarde Principal Robert Archuleta with a few options.
He could split the fifth grade into two smaller classes, for example. The problem with that is the school does not have a second fifth-grade teacher, which means one of the two fifth-grade classes would almost certainly wind up taught by a substitute, Archuleta said.
“Or, I guess I could fight (Cockerham) for another teacher. But I don’t think that would be very productive,” Archuleta said.
Cockerham said the District would only hire an additional teacher for the school if it reaches the maximum average enrollment of 24 students for grades four through six. To reach that figure, Velarde would have to enroll five more students in that grade range.
“They have to have the right amount of students,” Cockerham said. “The answer is, we won’t treat Velarde any different from any of the other schools.”
And even if Cockerham did agree to give Velarde Elementary another teacher, the school would need to get in line behind other schools waiting for new teachers, such as Hernandez and Abiquiú elementary schools.
Archuleta decided instead to stick with a larger fifth-grade class, arguing that at least those students are taught by an experienced, fully-licensed teacher, he said. Rubina Loibl, treasurer of Velarde’s Parent Action Committee and the mother of a fifth-grader at that school, said she is satisfied with Archuleta’s decision.
“(Lara) is doing a wonderful job, considering the circumstances. It’s the best we can do right now,” Loibl said. “If we had the opportunity to get a second teacher that’s as good as (Lara), that’d be ideal. But if it’s that or having a long-term sub, at least he can control the class and teach effectively.”