Virginia public school teachers waiting for teaching licenses from the state education department could be at risk of losing their jobs if the department, which is months behind in processing applications, doesn’t grant their licenses in time.
Over the past year, the backlog of applications has led to wait times of several weeks, if not months, longer than the process would usually take.
The delays are now potentially impacting teacher employment, said David Walrod, president of the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers. He said a number of teachers for Fairfax County Public Schools, the state’s largest school division, received a notice from FCPS this week stating that their teaching contract would not be renewed if the Virginia Department of Education did not issue a license by June 9, ahead of the contract expiration date of June 30.
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Many of those people, Walrod said, are already working in the school division with a temporary or active license that needs their renewal application processed by the state.
“All the people who are freaked out are people who have done everything they needed to,” he said. “I can’t imagine how frustrated I would be.”
State education department spokesman Charles Pyle said in an email that the department is facing a number of challenges, including staffing shortages and process changes, that have contributed to the delays. Pyle said the type of license educators are requesting and the time of year they submit their applications can impact turnaround time.
“This is a real issue,” said Scott Brabrand, executive director of the Virginia Association of School Superintendents. “It’s taking months and months instead of weeks.”
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The delays threatening teacher jobs come as education officials around the country are working to fill classrooms and ease devastating teacher vacancies. Nationally, more than half of public school principals reported staff shortages as classes started in August, according to a survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, an arm of the U.S. Education Department. The intensity of the shortages varies by state and school district, but they have driven a wave of efforts, legislation and policies designed to lower the barriers and loosen requirements to get a teaching license.
In Virginia, data from the Education Department shows that there are more than 3,500 teacher vacancies around the state, about 3.9 percent of total positions. For the 2021-2022 school year, the state lacked about 2,800 teachers and about 1,000 during the 2019-2020 school year.
The shortages led to an executive directive from Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) intended to ease the path to becoming a teacher. The directive, issued in September last year, includes instructions for the Education Department to “develop additional legislative proposals to reduce red tape associated with teacher licensure” and “use all discretion within law to issue teaching and renewal licenses, including to teachers licensed in another state and retired teachers whose licenses may have lapsed.”
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Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction Lisa Coons, who started the position earlier this month, said in an interview that resolving licensing delays and ensuring that high-quality teachers are in every classroom was a top priority for her coming into the new role.
“One of the things we’ve been focusing on is how do we move through the backlog, how do we accelerate that to ensure that every school division has a licensed teacher, that no one who is applying for a license or license renewal is in jeopardy of losing that position that they so deeply want to impact children,” Coons said.
But in the meantime, the procedural licensing delays are adding a hurdle to getting qualified teachers into classrooms.
“It’s not helpful if a school is trying to hire a teacher and they’re not licensed,” said Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality. “It would be an eyebrow-raising statistic that it takes six months to get licensed in Virginia.”
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Fairfax Schools spokeswoman Julie Moult said in a statement that the notices sent out this week were part of annual reminders to teachers about licensure requirements and deadlines to ensure that teachers in the classrooms are licensed in Virginia.
“We have reached out to VDOE and asked them to work with us to expedite these applications,” she said. “We are aware that there are some delays at the state level that may have an impact on the employment of some of our teachers next year. This is of deep concern to us.”
Coons said on Friday that she had not heard from the school division.
She was also hesitant to share licensure turnaround times, citing varying timelines for different types of applications. Coons said the licensing office is not promising timelines when candidates submit an application. But emails between a VDOE licensure specialist, who processes and reviews applications, and an applicant that were reviewed by The Washington Post showed that in January the office estimated a processing time of least 14 weeks from the time a request is received, “due to the high volume of pending requests.”
Nicholas Tharp, a special-education teacher with FCPS, has worked since 2019 under a provisional license — short-term, nonrenewable licenses for educators who don’t meet full requirements but are still qualified to teach. Tharp graduated from a teaching program at George Mason University in May 2022, and worked with a FCPS licensure specialist to submit a complete application for a full professional license in early November. He lined up a job in Indiana, but needed the Virginia license to secure the job and transfer the license.
In March, VDOE confirmed in an email to Tharp that his application was received in November and assigned to a specialist for review on November 21. At the time, the office was still reviewing applications submitted in September and early October, according to the email dated March 15 and reviewed by The Post.
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“Please note that the processing time frames we provide are estimates and are subject to change with the steady volume of requests and other tasks delegated to our specialists,” the licensing department staffer wrote to Tharp.
He followed up again on April 14 and April 20. On Monday, the office said his application would be reviewed in about two weeks.
When he checked his license status online Friday morning, more than five months after his application was submitted, his license had been granted.
“It’s been frustrating,” Tharp said. “I needed the paperwork that shows I am qualified for a license in Indiana.”
The 13-step teaching license application is an extensive and often costly process that involves a $100 in-state and $150 out-of-state application fee, passing scores on teacher assessments and the completion of multiple trainings such as CPR, first aid and dyslexia awareness. According to a November report from Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC), there are more than 10 types of licenses with more than 40 qualifications.
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The report outlines concerns from a division human resources director who said that the licensure process is “complicated and people need help,” along with concerns of teachers from other states who said Virginia’s licensure process is more complex.
“Division staff cite this confusion as a deterrent to individuals potentially pursuing teacher licensure, especially those pursing an alternative path to teaching, such as a career switcher,” the report reads.
Applicants who come to teaching from a more traditional route, such as graduating from a teacher preparation program, or those who already have a license from another state typically experience shorter wait times. Dara Hall, executive director of Teacher Education and Student Success at James Madison University, said that students coming out of JMU’s programs work directly with licensing specialists to streamline the process. Her students have experienced some minor delays, but overall it’s had little impact on their ability to secure jobs, Hall said.
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“Everybody wants everything done yesterday, but that’s not realistic,” she said in an interview.
Applications from alternative routes, such as a provisional license, or applicants who come from different backgrounds typically take two to three times longer to process, Coons said, and Virginia has seen a significant uptick in these types of applications, which is contributing to the backlog.
The JLARC report showed a 24 percent increase of provisionally licensed teachers during the 2021-22 school year compared with the pre-pandemic average.
“I’m excited about these alternative pathways to licensure. That’s a great opportunity for us to grow our own teachers and work with other partners to really think innovatively about becoming a teacher in the state of Virginia and across our country,” Coons said.
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Peske with the National Council on Teacher Quality said that the delays in licensing will most likely have a bigger impact on high-poverty schools that need quality teachers the most. Studies show that a school’s hiring timeline has an impact on student performance, and schools that hire earlier are more likely to have classrooms staffed with effective teachers.
“This demonstrates the importance of having a fully-licensed teacher candidate pool that is ready to apply for and start working in schools as early as possible,” Peske said in an email.
Pyle pointed to a number of challenges such as vacancies and turnover within the education department’s licensure division, which started in 2019. Changes during the pandemic, like closing government buildings and telecommuting, forced the office of licensure to overhaul its operations.
The department is working on a centralized system that will move the application process entirely online and eliminate some of the manual paper processing currently in place, Pyle said. The system is scheduled to launch Jan. 1, and the department is poised to make other changes to streamline the process in the coming weeks.
But for teachers who are waiting on a license now to know whether they’ll have a job next year, the delays are urgent.
“Apparently it’s my fault VDOE is slow, and therefor I won’t have a job next year?” a teacher posted anonymously in a FCPS teacher Facebook group. “No wonder there’s a teacher shortage.”
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