This week’s call for National Guard volunteers to act as substitute teachers in New Mexico’s classrooms is the first in the country. Officials, teachers and advocates say the unprecedented move is a response to a crisis that has left more than 1,000 teaching positions vacant as exhausted educators leave the profession and schools struggle to stay open.
“It's the biggest challenge as far as numbers we've ever had,” said Kurt Steinhaus, Secretary of the Public Education Department, adding he thought there were even more vacancies than the 1,048 counted in October last year by New Mexico State University.
He praised educators for adapting to remote and hybrid learning during the pandemic but said in the end, the increase in workload was just too much for many.
"Those teachers stepped up to the plate and put in extra hours, worked weekends. And from my experience, they were just incredible," Steinhaus told KUNM. "But we did this for a year. And now we're doing it again. And our teachers are saying, 'I'm tired, I've been on this emotional wagon here so long that I just can't continue.'"
Many have taken early retirement.
Now, the omicron variant of COVID-19 is tearing through the state, forcing many teachers to quarantine. The call for volunteers from the National Guard, or anyone else, to help out is designed to help keep schools open. This is especially important for vulnerable children, said Steinhaus.
"Some kids, family is not stable, but school is stable," he said. "There's a person they can depend on, there's food. And in many of our schools, it's breakfast and lunch."
New Mexico has one of the worst rates of food insecurity for children in the country. According to the non-profit Feeding America, one in five children here faces hunger. During previous school closures, meals were delivered to many children who needed them, but teachers say for children living in deep poverty, the impact of school closures is broad.
"I didn't see them during virtual, to be honest," said Jennifer Barnwell, a teacher in Carrizozo, Lincoln County, where the poverty rate is around 17 percent. Children from the poorest families, "didn't log on, they didn't do schoolwork….For these kids, surviving was what they did, you know, school was not even on their mind because they were trying to survive."
When schools re-opened, some of those children never came back, she said. For the ones who did, school provided some things their families can't. Barnwell said children can take clothes from a closet of donated items at school and she discreetly takes some for showers there. She said more than educating at the moment, she is helping children heal.
"If you think that teaching content is what we're doing right now, it's just not," she said. "We're teaching kids how to learn again. We're providing kids a safe place, and we're dealing with a lot of emotional learning and trauma at the same time."
Some advocates support the plan for National Guard volunteers to act as substitute teachers. Training of volunteers has already begun. They will not be armed and district officials will choose whether they wear uniform or civilian clothes.
"The governor approached us about it earlier in the week, and we had a lot of concerns," said Whitney Holland, president of the American Federation of Teachers in New Mexico.
"I don't ever want to fall into a situation where we can imply that anyone off the street is a licensed, trained, professional educator," she said. "But on the flip of that, I am completely mindful of the crisis we're in. And I think it's a really good first step in moving towards getting our schools fully staffed."
Barnwell, the teacher in Carrizozo, is unsure.
"I thought it was a nice gesture, but I think it's completely impractical," she said. "We don't need a body in there, we need people who can do the job."
In the long term, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is seeking to address the staffing crisis by using an oil-and-gas windfall to raise teachers' salaries. Speaking at the beginning of this year's legislative session, she called for a 7% raise for all educators, and as much as a 20% raise for some teachers.
Steinhaus said the proposed raise was just one of a slew of measures designed to improve teacher recruitment and retention, and that his priority was to do everything he could to keep schools open.
"What is happening to our children right now is possibly going to impact them for many, many years," he said. "And we've got to work really hard to make sure that they're connected on an emotional level with at least one adult."
