The number of teacher vacancies in New Mexico has decreased 13 percent compared to last year, according to the 2019 New Mexico Educator Vacancy Report compiled by the Southwest Outreach Academic Research Evaluation & Policy Center at New Mexico State University.

While the decrease in total teacher need from 740 last year to 644 this year is encouraging, this is still a large number of educator positions that needed to be filled at the beginning of the school year, said Rachel Boren, director of the center. The state currently has a total of 1,054 educator vacancies, including the 644 teacher vacancies, indicating that there is still a substantial need for educators in New Mexico. Last year’s report found 1,173 total educator vacancies.

The report recommends that in order to address the vacancy problem in New Mexico, additional attention to how to recruit new teachers and retain current teachers is needed. The vacancy data was gathered by researchers who combed through job postings at each New Mexico school district’s website and grouped positions by district and teaching area or job type.

According to the report, the 173 elementary teacher vacancies and 151 special education teacher vacancies combined to make up half of the total teacher need. Last year’s report also indicated these as areas of high need. Within secondary education, the subject with the largest need is math.

“The large demand for math teachers is particularly difficult to address considering the much smaller supply of students who recently completed or who were recently admitted to an educator preparation program in this teaching field,” Boren said.

Areas with the largest numbers of teacher vacancies included central New Mexico, which includes Albuquerque and Santa Fe, with 309 teacher vacancies; and southeast New Mexico, which includes Alamogordo, Carlsbad and Ruidoso, with 147 teacher vacancies.

According to the report, the southwest region of New Mexico, which includes Las Cruces, Gadsden, Deming and Hatch Valley, has 65 teacher vacancies.

The report also found that last year, more college-level students were admitted to an alternative licensure program than a traditional one, and the split of alternative and traditional completers was almost equal, suggesting a large demand for alternative licensure providers.

Educational and instructional assistants also remain in high demand with an increase of 30 percent in vacancies compared to last year, according to the report. Within 258 vacancies, over half are for special educational assistants alone, and most are at the elementary level.

There are also several vacancies in additional student support services, including a need for 42 speech language pathologists and 37 counselors.

The report also cites a number of education initiatives and recent changes in PK-12 policy, such as new scholarships for teacher education students and educational assistants, changes to the state testing and teacher evaluation systems, and the results of the Yazzie/Martinez v. State of New Mexico lawsuit that may influence subsequent vacancy data and the teacher pipeline.

However, “We will need time and data before we can state whether or not, and to what extent, these initiatives directly had any impact,” Boren said.

Henrietta Williams Pichon, interim associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Education, said the college is “creating a culture for success for students in the college from admission to graduation.”

Other initiatives in the college include a newly dedicated Office of Educational Support and Resource Center, which focuses on both the recruitment and retention needs of students, as well as offering special EDUC 195 courses to assist students with national testing requirements, as well as a newly approved minor in secondary education.

“Our educator preparation programs are nationally accredited and ensure that we are providing students with high-quality programs,” Pichon said.

The Southwest Outreach Academic Research Evaluation & Policy Center is housed in the NMSU College of Education. The report was prepared by Boren using data collected by researchers Germain Degardin, Ruth Lawson, Samantha Mendoza and Giovanna Perez.

To download the 2019 New Mexico Educator Vacancy Report, visit http://alliance.nmsu.edu/soar/pubs.