Georgia's Critical Needs
Where We Need You. While it's true that Georgia is experiencing a shortage of teachers across the board, certain areas are more in need than others. In terms of grade range, elementary school teachers represent the largest shortfall, with nearly 1,000 elementary school teacher jobs expected to go unfilled each year.
The approved critical shortage fields may change each spring, based on an annual survey of teaching vacancies in Georgia.
The following critical shortage fields were approved for the 2007-2008 academic year. Teaching fields may be added or removed for the 2008-2009 academic year in May 2008:
- Interrelated Special Education (P-12) (General Curriculum)
- Mental Retardation (P-12) (Adapted Curriculum)
- Learning Disabilities (P-12)
- Behavior Disorders (P-12)
- Interrelated Special Education / Early Childhood (General Curriculum/ECE)
- Middle Grades Math (4-8)
- Middle Grades Science (4-8)
- Middle Grades Math & Science (4-8)
- Early Childhood Education (P-5)
- Secondary English (6-12)
- Mathematics (6-12)
- Science (6-12) (Includes Broad Field, Biology, Chemistry, Earth/Space & Physics)
- History (6-12)
- Economics (6-12)
- Political Science (6-12)
- Geography (6-12)
- Spanish (P-12)
- French (P-12)
- Music (P-12)
- Art (P-12)
- Hearing Impaired (P-12)
- Orthopedically Impaired (P-12)
What You Can Expect. Choosing to pursue teaching in a critical shortage area, particularly through one of the University System of Georgia's teacher preparation programs, comes with a number of benefits, including the guarantee of excellence that comes with all available programs, availability of teaching positions and eligibility for the HOPE Promise Teacher Scholarship Program and the HOPE Teacher Scholarship.