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Madison Metropolitan School District superintendent Carlton Jenkins, right, talks with CNN about the national teacher shortage.

Madison Metropolitan School District superintendent Carlton Jenkins has been on a national media tour over the past week.

He’s been quoted in the Washington Post and spoke to CNN and Meet the Press NOW, all about the national teacher shortage, its causes and MMSD’s potential solutions as the 2022-23 school year quickly approaches.

“We’ve had a teacher shortage before the pandemic, but now since the pandemic, it has really increased,” he told CNN. “In fact, this is our largest number of vacancies since 2017. It’s about 37 more vacancies than we had in 2017.”

Among his proposed solutions, as he told the Washington Post, is converting some in a growing substitute pool into full-time teachers.

​​“We’re just going to go after them,” Jenkins said to the Post, including providing “some immediate supplies. Every teacher likes their calendar, right? So we’re providing calendars, little things for them — and we have some other things planned that I don’t want to reveal, because I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

That "calendar" comment, specifically, was panned on social media from some area teachers and national teacher advocates who have suggested districts instead need to focus on better pay and improving working conditions to retain people.

Comments on the district’s own Facebook post linking to the article included calling it “really embarrassing,” with another former MMSD teacher writing, “This is why I quit.” Another wrote that “so many educator friends in other states sent this to me with eye roll emojis.”

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Madison Metropolitan School District superintendent Carlton Jenkins, left, speaks on Meet the Press NOW Thursday.

During Thursday’s appearance on Meet the Press NOW, Jenkins spoke to a subject that has proved divisive in recent months in Madison: teacher pay. The Madison School Board approved a 3% base wage increase for all staff last month, less than the 4.7% maximum allowed, which Madison Teachers Inc. had been bargaining for.

Now, the district is considering a pay raise for some hourly employees, also below what MTI has publicly asked for. District officials have largely blamed the state Legislature for not increasing schools’ revenue limits at all in this biennial budget, a theme Jenkins continued in his interview, calling for better state funding of education.

“Teachers want to teach, they want to follow their passion,” he said. “But it’s really coming to a point right now where it’s disrespectful to professionals … our (educational assistants) are paying to follow their passion.”

As of Monday, MMSD had about 141 teacher vacancies remaining with just a few weeks until the school year.

“This is becoming, in my estimation, the number one thing that we need to invest in... public education is the key,” he said on Meet the Press NOW.

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