Schools Fill Teacher Shortages in Haddonfield Area In Different Ways

HADDONFIELD AREA, NJ — Several schools in the Haddonfield area took various steps to help ensure the 2022-23 school year began on Tuesday with enough teachers.

For example, the Haddon Township Board of Education gave its superintendent permission to hire staff from Aug. 19 until Sept. 15 to ensure the district school year began on Tuesday with "sufficient staff," according to the agenda of an Aug. 18 board meeting.

The number of substitutes Haddon Township needed to ensure that the district was fully staffed was unclear as of this story's posting.

In the nearby Haddonfield School District, there were still several foreign language teacher openings as of Aug. 25, said Board of Education Member and Curriculum Committee Chair Jaime Grookett at a school board meeting on that same date.

Consequently, that district's board of education was looking at the possibility of utilizing "remote instruction" and "reaching out to neighboring school districts" to ensure the educational process went as smoothly as possible for the district's students when classes began, she said.

The staffing shortages reported in the Haddonfield and Haddon Township school districts were occurring elsewhere in the Garden State as the new school year got underway, data indicate.

New Jersey was being forecast to enter the school year with educator shortages at all grade levels for teaching math, science, special education, English as a second language, world languages and career and technical education, according to federal officials.

This story also contains reporting by Josh Bakan.

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