Pittsburgh teachers union president voices concerns about teacher shortage

PITTSBURGH — The numbers are just downright shocking.

“There is a teacher shortage. We want to make students want to come into teaching, so we certainly don’t make it attractive if they don’t see happy teachers,” said Nina Esposito-Visgitis, who’s the PFT Union president.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education reports the number of undergraduate education majors dropped by 66% in 10 years. How about the number of new state teaching certificates being issued? That’s down 66% too over the last 11 years.

With fewer new teachers, you’d think you can rely on current teachers, but lately, that’s wrong.

“I’ve always thought, not in Pittsburgh, but that is hitting Pittsburgh also. More younger teachers, less seasoned teachers are leaving the profession,” Esposito-Visgitis said.

She went on to tell Channel 11 that it’s a crisis.

“A lot of people are under stress. A lot is going on in our schools across the country — TikTok challenges, just crazy,” Esposito-Visgitis said.

We’ve seen the fights plastered on social media with teachers trying to break it up, but she said that, coupled with the lack of support, is pushing people out.

She told Channel 11 that 29 support classrooms didn’t have any support paraprofessionals this year and class sizes are growing larger by the year.

So what’s the solution?

“We have to make ourselves the most attractive and make every one of our schools places where parents want to send their students. Where students want to go and where every teacher when they get out of school they want to teach there,” Esposito-Visgitis said.

The districts won’t know for sure how many teachers they need to be fully staffed, until the openings start coming in this summer. But there is high demand in the areas of special education, science and math.

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