NSEA wants lawmakers to address teacher shortage, school funding
By Jolie Peal , Reporter Nebraska Public Media News
13 de Enero de 2025 a las 10:00 ·

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The Nebraska State Education Association, which is the teacher’s union, wants state lawmakers to make “major movements” this legislative session to tackle the teacher shortage, including creating paid family medical leave and a yearly retention grant for all teachers.
A Nebraska Department of Education report last month showed that Nebraska schools reported nearly 670 unfilled teaching positions at the start of the 2024-25 school year. Schools either filled the open roles with someone who wasn’t fully qualified or left the position vacant.
Over 900 positions went unfilled in the previous school year. A decade ago in the 2014-15 school year, 166 positions were left unfilled.
NSEA president Tim Royers said areas like special education and career and technical education have seen shortages for years, but other areas like elementary education have seen challenges more recently.
“The fact that we're having a hard time just filling a regular third grade classroom with a teacher should be a wake up call to all Nebraskans that we need to start doing some pretty decisive things to help not just recruit new people into the profession, but to make sure we're retaining those folks who are currently working in our schools,” Royers said.
As the legislative session gets underway, Royers said NSEA wants to see lawmakers address the teacher shortage through several initiatives. The first is offering teachers six weeks of paid family medical leave on top of what their district offers. Royers said it would be no cost for the state because teachers would invest in a payroll fee that the district would match.
“If I'm a teacher making $50,000 a year, I'm talking about less than $200 a year coming out of my paycheck, and it's going to give me access to six weeks of paid family medical leave,” Royers said.
The paid family medical leave could be used for maternity or paternity leave, as well as important medical treatments or taking care of family members.
“I heard from a first year teacher who had a cancer diagnosis in their first month of teaching, and they shouldn't have to worry about losing money while also battling cancer,” Royers said. “We also heard from teachers later in their career. They're having issues with their parents, and they need to take family medical leave to take care of their parents who are older. This checks off so many scenarios that's negatively impacting the finances of our teachers to the point where they're leaving the profession.”
In addition to paid family sick leave, Royers said NSEA wants lawmakers to expand on a bill that created a $2,500 retention grant for teachers in the second, fourth and sixth year. They want to see it go to all teachers for staying in the profession.
“We got a lot of feedback from our more veteran educators who are saying, ‘Where's the recognition of my years of service? I've been doing this for a decade, two decades, three decades even, where's the recognition that I'm continuing to come back,’” Royers said.
Another solution to the teacher shortage the union supports is paying student teachers. Royers said some districts pay student teachers, but others don’t.
“Not a lot of folks realize when you student teach, you are doing the full time job of a teacher — and an actual certificated teacher stays in the room and coaches you and guides you — but that's your job,” Royers said. “You are teaching the classes. You're grading the papers. You're emailing the parents. You do everything, but you don't get paid for it. Not only do you not get paid for it, student teaching is a 10 to 12 credit hour class. So you don't get paid, you're actually paying thousands of dollars in tuition.”
In addition to the teacher shortage, NSEA wants to see changes to the school funding formula.
Nebraska public schools are funded through the Tax Equity and Educational Opportunities Support Act, better known as TEEOSA. It calculates state aid to schools based on local property values. But several districts have seen cuts in state aid that many say fall on local taxpayers to make up.
“It's just like if I tried to use technology from the 1980s to teach in 2025, I wouldn't be at my best, and I wouldn't be meeting the needs of the kids,” Royers said. “That's true of school funding.”
NSEA wants the legislature to form a two-year committee to give the state time to explore the challenges with TEEOSA.
“The main question driving the debate over TEEOSA is how do we get more property tax relief?" Royers said. “That's not the question we should be asking. The question we should be asking is, how do we build a funding formula that meets the needs of our kids.”
The Nebraska Legislature is in session until June 9.