Learning Matters: It's getting harder to draw students toward teaching

By Joylene Wagner

March 18, 2016 5:01 PM PT

Teachers matter. That was the message I took away from the Glendale Educational Foundation’s recent Denim and Diamonds awards dinner at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center.

Christine Walters, school board president, may have said it best when she called out her third-grade teacher, Melinda Lanzafame (wife of honoree Phil Lanzafame), as “my favorite teacher ever.” Walters thanked Lanzafame for steering her toward her current position. Similar thanks echoed throughout the evening from presenters and honorees alike.

For more than a decade, the Glendale Educational Foundation has worked to enrich and enhance the programs and projects of the Glendale Unified School District in the areas of science and technology, health and fitness, and the arts.

For the past six years, it has honored district graduates who have found success in those fields or in broader service to our schools. The unstated goal is that the honorees serve as examples to current and future students and their families: You can get there from here; our public schools foster success.

This year the foundation honored three graduates — all from Crescenta Valley High School as it happens — with Diamond Awards:

Michael “Falcon Mike” Hull, a 1963 graduate, Crescenta Valley High’s first student body president, a seven-year player in the NFL, and now regional counsel for Coldwell Banker.

Judy Thomson, a 1972 graduate and now a teacher at Clark Magnet High School teacher, also an innovator in implementing technology in physical education.

Phil Lanzafame, a 1978 graduate and director of community development for the city of Glendale, whose contributions extend well beyond his official city duties.

The foundation also presented a special Sapphire Award to Susan Hunt, founding executive director of the foundation and mother of three Glendale Unified graduates. She has announced her retirement at the end of this calendar year after almost three decades of commitment to Glendale schools.

In one way or another, all the honorees acknowledged the role the district played in their successes — the teachers, administrators, and coaches who encouraged them. But I wondered, as I left the event, about who will replace the teachers these graduates experienced. Who will guide and inspire the next generation of Diamond Award winners?

Los Angeles Times “Capitol Journal” columnist George Skelton addressed the issue twice in February (L.A. Times, Feb. 15 and 18). “It’s getting harder and harder to attract college students to teaching. … frustrating because there are plenty of job vacancies and a growing shortage of qualified applicants,” Skelton wrote.

He reported a 70% drop in college graduates preparing to be teachers and quoted State Supt. Tom Torlakson’s warning, “We’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg.”

To answer how such concerns are affecting Glendale, I contacted two of our veteran school principals as well as the assistant superintendent of human resources — also a former principal — about staffing concerns, what they look for in a teacher and what drew them into teaching.

Cynthia Livingston, principal of Rosemont Middle School, told me she had been a dance major in college, with no plans to become a teacher, when she followed the advice of her dad’s friend and applied for a job opening in Capistrano Unified. Working her first year as one of two paid interns alongside a master teacher, she got “lots of guided practice,” which she credits for her successful start.

As a principal, she has had little need to recruit teachers, thanks to experienced teachers from other districts eager to transfer to Glendale Unified and the regular supply of student teachers from nearby universities.

Assistant Supt. Maria Gandera agreed about the hiring advantage Glendale Unified has long enjoyed. However, since the Great Recession and the budget cuts that hit education, she said, “Glendale has to do more.”

She estimates approximately 20% of Glendale’s teachers will be retiring in the next five to seven years, and she notes the many teachers in other districts who were laid off, found other jobs, and never returned to the profession.

As school district programs shrank under budget cuts, teacher-education programs shrank, too, and increasing numbers of would-be teachers have been encouraged to “do something else.”

Gandera is still happy in her career choice, made on her way to law school when she took a year off and fell in love with teaching. Now, she looks for well-rounded teaching candidates with “…eyes shining at the thought of being with students … not imparting knowledge but allowing opportunities for students to discover new things.”

Mary Mason, principal of Roosevelt Middle School, wrote in an email, “Most teachers … can relate to a moment when we supported a child and taught them something, and the little light bulb turned on in their eyes and they got what we were teaching them. It was a magical moment that hooked us forever….”

In hiring, Mason looks for “a team player, someone who … has a passion to try new things. “To me, there is no greater honor … than to call myself a teacher,” she wrote.

In these educators and others I’ve known, Glendale has what Skelton concludes is needed to attract new people to teaching: teachers who feel proud of their profession and can sell it to young people.

There’s hope for future Diamond Awards.

JOYLENE WAGNER is a past member of the Glendale Unified School Board. Email her at jkate4400@aol.com.

Learning Matters: It’s getting harder to draw students toward teaching