Madison Metropolitan School District reaches across the globe to find teachers

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) -The head of the Madison Metropolitan School District took to the national stage to talk about the state of staffing ahead of the school year.

Superintendent Dr. Carlton Jenkins told CNN that in total, MMSD is short 135 teachers district-wide. He said they’ve been getting creative to fill those spots.

He stated that they’ve had success reaching out to teachers not only across the country but across the globe. They found educators from Mexico and Spain for their dual language immersion program positions.

Dr. Jenkins said Madison isn’t the only district dealing with a teacher shortage--it’s an ongoing issue nationwide since the start of the pandemic.

”It’s not just what students are losing, it’s what America’s losing. Right now we have a national crisis in terms of teachers coming out. In 1970 we had 200,000 teachers being confirmed to be in a classroom. Now we have less than 90,000 that graduated last year,” Dr. Jenkins said.

Even though MMSD is short teachers, they said they’re in better shape than before. Dr. Jenkins explained that they have 75 more teachers this year than last.

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