From Crisis to Creativity: Reimagining the Educator Pipeline After COVID
July 23, 2025
Author
This is the eleventh part of a twenty-one blog series, 5 Years Later: Lessons, Innovation, and the Future of Public Education, exploring how PreK-12 education has evolved and what lessons we carry forward. This series will highlight the resilience, creativity, and strategic adaptations that have redefined public education since the pandemic. View the full schedule and roster of contributors
No leader welcomes a crisis, but effective leaders know they are inevitable. When the world shut down and schools closed their doors in 2020, finding and keeping quality educators was a major issue. Some teachers chose early retirement and some simply left the profession altogether. The teacher shortage, already years in the making, only intensified during the pandemic. We had to respond thoughtfully, differently, and quickly.
The Teacher Shortage Wasn鈥檛 New, But the Stakes Were Higher
Since the mid-1970s, fewer people have been entering education. However, COVID exacerbated and magnified the problem, forcing us to act and think differently. We were already facing challenges across the board, especially in high-need areas like
Spanish, math, and science.
In New Castle County Vo-Tech (NCCVT), we faced an additional challenge since our district employs individuals directly from industry to teach our career programs. Convincing someone to leave their job during a global crisis and step into a classroom was a herculean task. In some fields, accepting a teaching position means a pay cut of $30,000-40,000. A salary gap of that magnitude makes it increasingly difficult to fill instructional roles in high-wage industries.
Growing Our Own Pipeline
Fortunately, as a vocational-technical school district, we already had two Early Childhood programs in place, which we expanded to include teacher preparation credentials. We also added new Teacher Academies at our other two high schools, creating a direct, intentional pipeline into education.
But we knew that wasn鈥檛 enough.
In 2021, we became a certified ParaPro assessment site, offering credentialing to both adults and high school students, providing them with a clear, tangible qualification. Our capstone initiative placed seniors in cooperative employment with local school districts, many of which hired them as paraprofessionals immediately after graduation.
Our goal was simple but strategic: eliminate as many barriers as possible so students were as close to the profession as possible before they walked across the stage. That meant:
- Dual enrollment
- Work-based learning
- Early credentialing, and more.
Additionally, we supported our own paraprofessionals, launching a partnership with three local universities to create direct teaching pathways for paras who already held a bachelor鈥檚 degree.
One major barrier remained though: the Praxis.
So we invested in Tutor 240, an online tutoring program, for our paras. In just three years, eight paraprofessionals have passed the Praxis, entered Alternative Routes to Teacher Certification, and are now teaching in our schools.
A Story of Impact
These supports are not just programs; they are life-changing opportunities.
Dulce started as a para in our district and used our tuition reimbursement program to earn her bachelor鈥檚 and eventually her master鈥檚 in math education, as well as a certification in special education. Today, she is a bilingual math instructor, an incredible asset to our students and our staff. Her journey underscores the power of accessible pathways and targeted support.
So, we leaned into telling our story differently. As a CTE district, we are used to attracting potential educators from alternate routes, so we used that same mentality to attract potential educators into our academic classes. We leveraged social media to highlight our district. We created videos that celebrated our educators and showed why NCCVT is a great place to work. We capitalized on how COVID forced people to reevaluate their purpose and mission in life, and we wanted people to consider NCCVT to fill that need.
We weren鈥檛 just recruiting; we were creating possibilities. This strategy raised our district profile and attracted interest. We knew we needed to do more, so we launched our own district job fair, focused on hard-to-fill positions, and structured it so we could interview and hire candidates on-site. The event was a success and now is a staple in our recruiting efforts.
Moving Forward with Purpose
None of these successes happened overnight and they wouldn鈥檛 be possible without the incredible people in NCCVT. When the pandemic hit, I was eight months into my superintendency. Nothing in my prior experience could have prepared me for what was to come. The team that surrounded me then and the team that I have now are remarkable.
We need to think and act as if our children鈥檚 future depends on it, because it does.
Every situation offers an opportunity, as Dr. Wayne Dyer said, 鈥淲hen you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.鈥� We knew we had to find possibilities amid the chaos.
Our work is far from done. Building a robust workforce pipeline that starts early, supports career changers, removes barriers, and celebrates the profession is our ongoing commitment.
The future of public education depends on our ability to attract, prepare, and retain high-quality educators. We need to think and act as if our children鈥檚 future depends on it, because it does. At NCCVT, we鈥檙e building solutions right here, right now.
