PORT ARTHUR, Texas — The shortage of teachers has been an issue for school districts nationwide, but Port Arthur Independent School District has taken steps to close the gap.
They are providing their students with a good education through distance learning, which is something that has been a familiar sight since the pandemic.
In regards to the foreign language courses taught at PAISD, the district is outsourcing with the help of Region5, which is a place that provides qualified teachers to help students further their language skills, virtually.
Haciendo lo necesario para ayudar a los estudiantes, meaning doing what is necessary to help the students.
This is the approach Memorial High School and others in the district are taking to help their kids succeed in learning another language.
The COVID-19 pandemic really heightened the teacher shortage, so they have expanded their services into four schools total, one of them being Memorial High School.
Language Other Than English (LOTE) supervisor Dr. Azineth Buan says it has been working so far.
"If there are no teachers in the classroom, the learning of the students does not transpire, and so with the distance learning. They were able to remove that gap.. and help those students receive instruction," she said.
The Region 5 Education Service Center has provided qualified teachers since 2015. Director Russell Tritico says he has seen great results.
"The benefit of this is they are getting highly qualified teachers with high technological skills and highly interactive with the students, the benefit is they know how the kids learn now a days," he said.
The district uses state of the art technology to bring learning to life. Students get to interact and ask questions to their teachers. Buan says this has been a good solution to the teacher shortage problem.
"The teachers are there from Region 5, they are the ones teaching and the facilitators are actively monitoring what is happening in the classroom. Assisting those teachers with whatever activity and making sure the students are learning from the activity," she said.
The classes currently taught are from Spanish level one to level four and giving students a different approach while including the technology they use everyday.
While this is used for languages currently it could be looked at for other subject matters. Since it's been so successful, district leaders are wondering if this program can be expanded to other classes.
"If we get to that point where we really don't have teachers where distance learning is really helpful," Tritico said.