Jeanine Beresh says she loves the rewards and the challenges of being a teacher. But, in recent years, it seems the biggest challenge she's found in the Akron School District... is job security.
JEANINE BERESH: I have been laid off two times, potentially three other times, since 2003. Every year, I received a letter stating I would possibly be laid off. That letter arrives usually in June and then I wait all summer to find out what's going to happen.
As the state sheds jobs and population, between 50 to 60 teachers in the Akron district are kept in suspense each summer about their employment prospects for the fall. For some, like Cindy Palumbo, the waiting game can last even longer.
CINDY PALUMBO: My last layoff, I believe it took me a year and a half before I was recalled. So, I had to find other jobs. I worked at a toy store and I babysat --- I took other teachers' kids in.
Ohio Federation of Teachers President Sue Taylor says the lack of jobs in the state can be disheartening, especially to young teachers just out of school.
SUE TAYLOR: It's just a huge high to get to where you need to be to do your job well, and then the feeling that all the work was in vain, because of: the economic circumstances…the loss of students from the district. It's just a terrible letdown.
But, Alexa Sandman who heads the teaching program at Kent State University notes that there are actually plenty of jobs available for her graduates --- just not in Ohio.
ALEXA SANDMAN: Our students have done incredibly well in getting positions in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Las Vegas, Texas --- those are places that have had incredible building booms and they've hired lots of our students.
WHILE Ohio has lost much of its former manufacturing might, Sandman says the state's teacher colleges are still working at full steam.
ALEXA SANDMAN: We graduate 10,000 students in Education every year in Ohio, but we only have 3,000 open positions, because of retirements, etc. Whereas, North Carolina graduates 3000 every year and needs ten. People come here to recruit, because they know the product that they're going to get.
This past summer, the federal government eased Ohio's educational brain drain somewhat by providing a two-year injection of so-called "state stabilization" --- or stimulus --- funding. In Akron's case, that will mean about 23 million dollars to fund special education teachers and to staff literacy courses in the lower grades. Bill Siegferth, who heads the local teacher's union, says there won't be any layoffs, this year.
BILL SIEGFERTH: We found out in July about our stimulus money, and we were able to go to work then, filling those positions, and we ended up filling 73, all told, which more than absorbed the "hit list", as I call it, that was floating around here this summer.
So, teachers like Jeanine Beresh can breathe a little easier, for now. But, those stimulus dollars are a one-time source of funding. Beresh and others like her could end up on the hit list again. Still, Beresh says she's not ready to consider other career options.
JEANINE BERESH: I haven't hit that, yet. I love teaching, so I'm in it for the long haul.
And when the stimulus money runs out, well, there's always North Carolina.
