Schools improve pay, working conditions to relieve California’s teacher shortage

A SEVERE TEACHER shortage exacerbated by the COVID pandemic has California school districts increasing teacher pay, developing new hiring strategies and trying to ease teachers’ workloads by hiring more support staff, according to a report by the Learning Policy Institute, a nonprofit education research organization.

The persistent teacher shortage, coupled with higher-than-usual retirements and resignations during the pandemic, has district officials scrambling to fill classrooms this school year, even as additional state and federal funding gave them the ability to hire more staff.