Out of the Classroom and Into the Front Office: The COVID-19 Pandemic and New Roles for Teachers

• In Event: School Staffing Challenges Through the Pandemic

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic presented an unprecedented challenge to the education system. Anticipating sharp declines in state revenues and increased costs associated with both Covid-19 mitigation strategies and learning recovery, the federal government appropriated nearly 190 billion dollars in elementary and secondary school emergency relief funds across three waves (ESSER I, II, and III) with requirements that some of these funds be used for post-pandemic learning recovery. Together, Covid-19-related emergency funds for schools constituted the largest-ever infusion of federal money into the U.S. education system (Malkus, 2021). Simultaneously, districts began to staff up by creating new positions (Institute of Education Sciences, 2022) with nearly half of emergency relief funds being spent on payroll (Silberstein & Roza, 2023). Although funds appear to be largely directed toward new positions, how a district uses them may impact existing teachers. For example, analyses of teacher turnover during the Covid-19 pandemic indicate that increased turnover may be partially explained by an increase in the proportion of teachers who switch to non-instructional roles, particularly roles such as instructional coaches and facilitators (Camp et al., 2022, 2023).

We investigate these newly created non-instructional positions using longitudinal administrative data from Arkansas. Specifically, we address the following research questions:

(1) What types of new roles have districts created following the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic? How are these new roles being funded?
(2) What subjects and grades are districts drawing from when filling these new roles with teachers? What are the characteristics of these teachers in terms of experience, demographics, and classroom effectiveness?
(3) Do teachers who transition to these newly created non-instructional roles predominantly come from within districts or between district transfers?

These questions are important not just for understanding what happened in schools during the Covid-19 pandemic but also for anticipating future staffing challenges. Although school staffing levels have grown since the pandemic began, public school enrollment has consistently decreased (Dee, 2023), indicating that a fiscal cliff and severe staffing cuts may be looming (Silberstein & Roza, 2023).

Our preliminary results indicate that most newly created non-instructional positions tend to be generalist roles rather than roles focused on a particular subject area (e.g., mathematics or reading) and are concentrated in schools serving younger children. We additionally find suggestive evidence that individuals who occupy these roles tend to come from nearby school districts rather than from within the same school district. This “poaching” of licensed teachers from one district to work in another could exacerbate existing localized teacher shortages within the state.

Furthermore, individuals who move into these newly created positions tend to be more experienced than the average teacher in their district. If these positions are indeed funded through temporary relief funds, this indicates that a reduction-in-force following a future fiscal cliff could result in districts losing their most experienced staff.

Future planned analyses will investigate the funding sources for these new positions, the characteristics (including value-added) of teachers who transition into them, and the extent to which “poaching” occurs, particularly between nearby affluent and disadvantaged districts.

Authors

• Andrew Camp, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville

• Gema Zamarro, University of Arkansas

• Josh McGee, University of Arkansas