Santa Fe South Schools welcomes educators from Mexico to combat teaching shortage

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – Oklahoma is facing a major teaching shortage, and schools are having to get creative to find highly-qualified teachers.

"We have such a tremendous teacher shortage in Oklahoma. At last count, we were short 1,019 teachers in Oklahoma," said Renee Porter, programs director with Fuel OKC.

Santa Fe South Schools is taking a global approach to recruit talent.

"We, of course, would like to hire locally, and our first choice will be anybody coming from in the state or even outside of the state that will fulfill a need, and in some cases, we just don't have the qualified applicants for that," said Chris Brewster, superintendent of Santa Fe South Schools.

This school year, they have three new teachers from Mexico.

"We were able to recruit from a highly esteemed university in Puebla, Mexico, some really talented young people to come and teach," said Brewster.

It's part of a pilot program called the Oklahoma Teacher Pathway, and it's a partnership between Fuel OKC and Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP) in Puebla, Mexico.

"We had 16 who applied. Everyone was interviewed by leadership here at Santa Fe South, and we extended offers to five of the 16 applicants, and three accepted," said Porter.

Those three teachers are working under a three-year commitment.

"They are coming in as full-fledged teachers; they had experience. Two out of the three have master's degrees in their content areas," said Carson Aldridge, talent director with Santa Fe South Schools. 

As tensions rise around immigration in Oklahoma, leaders say they have no concern.

"These are fully professional employees who have been hired through the H-1B visa process, a very traditional kind of process," said Brewster.

Attorneys and state senators were also contacted during the process to make sure this was legal.

The community also stepped in to help the new teachers get settled in.

"Part of our school culture here is a familia, and so when we were getting their apartments outfitted, we had people donate washer and dryer, and so people really came together as our community to support them and to welcome them," said Aldridge.

Fuel OKC says this is part of a pilot program and that they hope to expand it to other schools across Oklahoma City in the future.