Maryland has a teacher problem, and it’s not just the shortage of educators in schools. Over 6,000 teachers already inside a classroom do not have a full teaching license.

Getting licensed teachers in the door has been a struggle for the state. Students aren’t flocking to education programs in college, and teachers have been leaving their jobs at higher rates since the pandemic.

Now a temporary solution has turned into a problem state leaders are trying to fix: 1 in 10 teachers have a conditional license that expires in a few years, and many are struggling to get the credentials they need to stay in the classroom.

The number of teachers with a temporary license, called a conditional certification, has skyrocketed in the last five years. It allows college graduates who didn’t study education to be hired at a school and start teaching right away. In recent weeks, it’s been touted as an option for federal workers looking for a new career. And it’s helped fill job openings and even improved racial diversity; most conditionally certified teachers are Black.

But those teachers are expected to take the courses and exams to earn a permanent license, a process some complain is anything but straightforward and is difficult to manage on top of their day job. In the meantime, tons of kids are left with a teacher who may lack the same skills as a licensed one.

Magira Ross doesn’t have a teaching license but has taught dance at Baltimore’s Western High School for more than a decade and has been a dance instructor for 42 years. For now, she carries the temporary credential, joining 13% of city teachers.

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Although she has a master’s degree in dance education, she said the licensure office for Baltimore City Public Schools told her she still needed 21 credits to be a fully licensed teacher. So, she did most of them: reading instruction courses and a class on assessments. The courses were intense, she said, especially because she had just started teaching at Western.

“When I first started, I didn’t get a lot of it done because I was trying to get used to teaching in schools,” Ross said.

The 61-year-old said she had to send her transcripts multiple times, losing money along the way since her alma mater doesn’t provide them for free. She said requests to meet with the licensure office were ignored. And a few years ago, she said a letter was sent to her students’ families informing them she has no license, a requirement for Title I schools in the state.

She sought help from the Baltimore Teachers Union.

T. Nathan Ferrell, a union leader, called the process “inhumane.” The licensure office didn’t always have a number for educators to call, he said. Staff only communicated through email, and a response often took weeks.

“We are really losing valuable teachers due to unwillingness to support educators,” he said.

Ferrell said the union hears from teachers daily about licensure issues and has pushed to speed up the process. The union created a certification task force back in 2020, added a clause to its contract requiring officials to respond to licensure requests in 10 days, created an email address for licensure queries and showed educators how to navigate the process.

“Our advocacy resulted in finally staffing that office better,” Ferrell said.

Cera Doering, city schools’ director of recruitment and partnerships, acknowledges that things aren’t perfect. She said she can’t speak to what’s happened in the past since she hasn’t been the job very long, but noted that the licensure team added three new people last year.

The licensure team cleaned up its website, held in-person information sessions for temporary-licensed teachers and encouraged licensure staff to be more organized and take a more personalized approach, she said. What’s been consistent, however, are the periodic email reminders for teachers to renew their licenses as the deadline approaches, Doering noted, but teachers often don’t notice them.

State changes

The temporary licenses have been part of the conversation among state education leaders as they grapple with recruitment and retention challenges. The state recently changed its teacher induction program, a way to help new teachers ease into the profession, requiring all unlicensed teachers to participate for at least three years instead of one. Those teachers would also receive help planning a route to full licensure, which can vary based on a teacher’s background.

To get a temporary license, teachers need at least a bachelor’s degree. To get a full license, teachers must pass Maryland licensure assessments and complete a college-level education preparation program, too. The classes needed to complete the program depend on what they studied in undergrad.

The Maryland State Department of Education recently allowed educators to hold onto the temporary license longer.

Initially, the license lasted four years total: two years to start, with a two-year renewal if need be. In response to requests from educators, the state added another two years in 2022, making the total time six years.

“We lose conditionally certified teachers all the time because they don’t meet the renewal requirements to maintain that credential at the two-year mark,” Kelly Meadows, assistant state superintendent, said in an interview.

Then, last April, the education department created a new version of the temporary license. It lasts five years and cannot be renewed. The new time frame isn’t uncommon nationally, said Meadows, and it answers a call from teachers who struggled to meet all the requirements for a full license in the initial four years allotted.

However, teachers who hold the old temporary license can keep it until it expires and then apply for the new one. So, if a teacher applied for the old license in 2019, renewed it twice, then applied for the new version, they could spend a decade as an unlicensed teacher.

Granting the temporary credential, Meadows said, is up to local school systems.

“And they may only do so when they cannot fill that vacancy or that assignment with a professionally licensed educator,” Meadows said.

The National Council on Teacher Quality, an education think tank, discourages employing unlicensed teachers for too long. In fact, the group criticized Maryland’s temporary licenses back in 2021 in its evaluation of licenses across the nation. It recommends only one year for the temporary license. Not doing so “puts students at risk,” its website states.

“A certification is one way of signaling that aspiring teachers have the knowledge and skills and are prepared to go into classrooms,” Heather Peske, president of the nonprofit, said in an interview.

Not having strong knowledge in the content can result in less effective teaching. Teachers tend to stay longer when they do, she added.

Research has shown there’s a positive relationship between licensure tests and student outcomes. The tests also highlight where teacher candidates need support and the quality of an education preparation program, Peske wrote in a 2022 blog post.

Ross, the Western High School teacher, still has a psychology course hanging over her head before she can become a fully licensed teacher. With all the back-and-forth she has dealt with, she said, the process “dilutes your passion for the work.”

Even though she loves what she does, it’s made her ask herself, “Why am I doing this?”

Baltimore Banner reporter Greg Morton contributed to this story.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.