Teaching from 3,000 miles away: San Jose school’s response to the California teacher shortage

On a Wednesday morning in May, a dozen students streamed into their geometry class at the Cindy Avitia High School. But instead of looking toward the blackboard, the 10th-graders opened up their laptops — and got ready to connect with a teacher nearly 3,000 miles away.

Their class is one of 11 taught by a virtual teacher at the charter school, which is pulling in educators from Alaska, Maryland and Texas to address California’s teacher shortage.

“I know it’s not ideal for our students — we all know that,” said Shara Hedge, the CEO of Alpha Public Schools, a charter network with four schools in San Jose. “But until we really, radically change the education profession here in the United States, we’re going to be looking at solutions like this.”

The geometry class — and all the virtual classes at Cindy Avitia — operate through Coursemojo, an educational technology company that brings hybrid teaching to classrooms across the country. It is an idea spun from the pandemic, and months of thinking about what went wrong — and right — with virtual teaching during a crisis.

Though the company was initially designed to expand elective offerings like cybersecurity and animation, almost immediately its founders saw how it could fill gaps in common core subjects like geometry, algebra and physics. Today, there are 11 credentialed Coursemojo educators teaching classes at three charter school networks in California, the majority of whom are teaching math and science. There are 50 Coursemojo teachers at work across the country, including in Colorado, Indiana, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Washington, D.C.

“Great teachers have never been equitably distributed, especially to the kids who need them most,” said Dacia Toll, who founded Coursemojo after operating a charter school network in the Northeast. “For me, the mental door opened when I saw what some of our most effective teachers were doing online (during COVID-19).”

Even before the pandemic, 80% of California’s school districts were experiencing a shortage of teachers, according to data from the Learning Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization that focuses on education policy. COVID-19 aggravated that trend, with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing reporting there were more than 10,000 teacher vacancies across the state during the 2021-22 school year. And for schools like Cindy Avitia, which serve mostly low-income students whose parents are immigrants, the impacts of those teacher shortages are particularly severe.

Hope Evans, a former principal of an Alpha charter middle school who now works for Coursemojo to support partner schools, said she used to juggle her administrative duties with picking up classes after teachers quit and couldn’t be replaced.

“At one point, I was teaching math classes and my assistant principal was teaching English,” said Evans. “That puts a significant strain on a school, and a significant strain on the teachers, principals and administrators who have to cover classes. And when you’re doing that, that means something else doesn’t get done, and the school doesn’t function as it should.”

Monica Campo Vazquez, a 16-year-old at Cindy Avitia, said she experienced something similar last year. Throughout ninth-grade, Vazquez had a series of rotating subs in her English class — including the school’s assistant principal.

“I’m now learning what I should have learned in ninth grade on top of what I need to learn in 10th,” Vazquez said. “(The subs) helped as much as they could, but it didn’t feel like a real teacher.”

This year, Vazquez is in the virtual geometry class. It’s the first year the model has been implemented at Cindy Avitia, which is among 12 charter schools authorized by the East Side Union High School District. The district conducts compliance visits to Cindy Avitia to ensure it stays on track, Hedge said.

Every day, Vazquez and her classmates share their screens with Sushma Vishnubhotla, a math teacher based in Maryland, while Rene Silva — their “learning coach” — stands by in person. Vazquez said that to her surprise, it’s actually her favorite class, especially because she can privately message Vishnubhotla if she has questions about the lessons.

While Vishnubhotla is responsible for the actual teaching, Silva is there as a learning coach to keep the students engaged, answering questions in person as they come up. Although Silva has a teaching credential, learning coaches are only required to have a long-term substitute teacher permit, making hiring for that position easier than finding a credentialed STEM teacher.

“What is the area of the square?” asked Vishnubhotla, her voice ringing through her students’ earphones.

“Area of the square, area of the square!” Silva echoed. “You’ve got this, guys.”

Silva’s involvement in the classroom is essential, teachers and students say. Through shared screens and digital whiteboards, Vishnubhotla can see everything her students are — or are not — doing. But it’s Silva who can get them back on track.

At one point, he sits down next to a student who seems to be losing interest.

“Everything okay?” Silva asks.

The student shrugs her shoulders, nods and sits up a little straighter, refocusing her eyes on her computer screen. Throughout the course of the class, Silva keeps his eyes on the student, revisiting her desk to ask questions and keep her engaged.

“The class will live and die based on that person,” said Evans of the learning coach. “The reality is that some kids struggle online, and you need to be able to have someone who can keep the kids engaged and excited.”