America faces catastrophic teacher shortage: The Washington Post

NEW YORK, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- The teacher shortage in America has hit crisis levels, and school officials are scrambling to ensure that there will be enough teachers, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Due to lack of staff, rural school districts in Texas are switching to four-day weeks this fall and veterans with no teaching background in Florida are asked to enter classrooms, according to the report.

"I have never seen it this bad," Dan Domenech, executive director of the School Superintendents Association, said of the teacher shortage. "Right now it's number one on the list of issues that are concerning school districts."

It is hard to estimate how many U.S. classrooms are short of teachers for the 2022-2023 school year, said the report.

"But state- and district-level reports have emerged across the country detailing staffing gaps that stretch from the hundreds to the thousands -- and remain wide open as summer winds rapidly to a close," it added.