Over the past two months, the State of Oklahoma has approved almost 900 emergency teaching certificates.
As The Tulsa World reports,many classrooms in Oklahoma have yet to find teachers and droves of educators have moved to Texas and elsewhere, in search of better pay.
Faced with a scarcity of qualified teachers, last year, Oklahoma changed state law to allow teachers with little to no qualifications to teach for up to two years without a teaching certificate.
Five years ago, Oklahoma issued only 32 teaching licenses for the entire 12-month period. Fast forward to 2017, and the state has issued 30 times that in just the first two months of the current academic year.
This past Thursday, State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister approved 631 emergency certificates - double the number for the same month last year.