In the 2021-2022 school year teacher turnover rates were at an all time high of 13.4%according to tea.texas.gov. In the 2024-2025 school year there are still teacher shortages in Texas, with multiple McNeil teachers leaving for other opportunities.
Some students experience hardship attending classes with no teachers because of the lack of opportunity compared to other students.
“I feel further behind than other students, we haven’t really learned anything,” senior Celeste Pfeiffer said. “Other students probably obtain the information and can remember what they’re taught, but I haven’t been taught anything and don’t remember.”
While classes without teachers have long term subs, this does not always alleviate the problems in the classroom.
”We have a long term sub he’s pretty cool,” Pfeiffer said. “I have to teach myself the work, it makes it harder because I have to do it all myself.”
The lack of learning can also affect students who went into the school year with a teacher that left later in the year.
“Ms. Vaculik posted all of our school work for the year before she left, but she thought we were going to have a teacher,” junior Katherine Ewing said. “Having no teacher makes learning worse, also since I’m in an AP class it would be good to have a teacher.”
AP classes have many components like heavier class work and an AP test, not having a teacher in these classes can lead to further complications in learning the required material confidently .
“I am taking the AP test and I already paid for it, if I knew I wasn’t going to have a teacher I would not have taken it,” Ewing said. “I just don’t really feel prepared for it.””
As this challenge still is apparent in schools, a substitute’s focus in a school is primarily keeping track of the physical well-being of the students.
“Keeping track of kids is an essential job,” long-term sub Jackson Cassady said. “I am a hall monitor from the inside, I keep the hall monitors at peace by keeping track of kids, but that’s not what a teacher does.”
However despite this struggle, the faculty and substitutes continue to try their best to make the best of the situation for the students.
“Not having a teacher absolutely affects their learning, how could it not?” Cassady said. “What is a classroom without a teacher?”
