To help enrich and triangulate our qualitative findings, we were granted access to workforce data from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The data set we used contained workforce data for every teacher employed at a Washington public school between the 2010-2011 and 2017-2018 school year, and contains information on:
To assess the strategies school districts are using to build a bilingual teacher workforce for dual language programs, we collected qualitative data through interviews with three Washington school districts.
Our case study participant selections were informed by conversations with our faculty sponsor, subject matter experts, and policy makers, analysis of OSPI workforce data, and the relevant literature.
We interviewed three sets of district administrators for an hour each-two in person and one over the phone, one in a rural district with high need, one in a district with a successful, established program, and one in a district with a new growing program.
We asked them questions about their hiring practices, a successful recent hire, and how policy goals affect their programs.
OSPI’s (2019a) budget decision package notes that, according to a 2018 survey of school district superintendents, the top barrier districts are facing in implementing dual language is finding the workforce.
Our district interviews reinforced what OSPI found through their survey, as all of our interview subjects indicated that staffing dual language programs with qualified teachers was a steady concern.
Districts are Looking Inward and Focusing on Grow Your Own Strategies
I believe there's three former para's that are at [one of our schools] right now that, just a couple years ago, were classified members working in the dual language school. So that's probably our greatest strength is some of those folks that come up through our system. - District 2 Administrator
Districts are addressing Retention Issues
A corollary to recruiting teachers of color and bilingual teachers is retaining them. Because you can recruit all the time, but if you're recruiting them into a culture that is basically, you know, a bastion of institutional racism... we're going to just lose as fast as we recruit. - District 1 Administrator
Districts are Seeking University Partnerships
So we also partner with [local universities] and engage them in placing student teachers and practicums in our schools for their education programs that include degrees that people complete that include endorsements like ESL or bilingual education. - District 3 Administrator
Districts are Hiring Teachers with Conditional Certifications
Someone might want to be a dual language teacher but their degree is graduating from WSU in economics. Well, they're bilingual, we might pick them up and they might be interested in teaching. So we're trying that this year. Some of the nontraditional places. - District 2 Administrator
Districts use conditional certifications to solve bilingual staffing issues. According to the State of Washington Administrative Code 181-79A-231, “The intent of the conditional certificate is to assist school districts, approved private schools, and educational service districts in meeting the state's educational goals by giving them flexibility in hiring decisions based on shortages or the opportunity to secure the services of unusually talented individuals.”
While the use of conditional certificates has its place, the drawback is that students are being taught by a teacher that is not (or not yet) certificated to teach that particular subject. As you can see in Figure 3, there is an increase in the use of conditional certificates across the state and in our participant districts.
