Oklahoma schools employ thousands of adjunct teachers as lawmakers consider appropriate use

OKLAHOMA CITY — More than 2,700 adjunct teachers are covering public school courses without a related certification, state data shows.

However, a majority of those instructors are certified to teach a different grade level or subject area, said Jeff Smith, the program director for teacher certification at the Oklahoma State Department of Education. 

Lawmakers hosted Smith and other speakers at the state Capitol on Thursday to discuss adjunct hires in public schools. Adjunct teachers are required to have “distinguished qualifications” in their career field, but state law doesn’t mandate that they hold a college degree or any form of teacher certification.

“The lion’s share of adjunct teachers are certified in some capacity,” Smith said. “So, the majority of adjunct teachers aren’t people that — you get the idea that they’re just bringing them in off the street.”

Adjunct numbers have grown each year, quickly reaching the thousands, after 2022 when the state Legislature removed a limit on the number of hours  these instructors could teach per semester. The change effectively allowed them to teach full time if a district permitted it. 

Educators who hold a teaching license also are considered to be “adjuncting” when they teach outside of their certification area, Smith said. More than 70% of the 2,768 adjunct teachers in Oklahoma public schools fit this description.

Another 821 of them hold no teaching certification but are meant to have relevant work experience, he said.

Four years after expanding adjuncts’ potential work hours, state legislators have begun restricting their use in schools.

House Bill 4427, which was signed into law this year, will prohibit adjunct instructors from teaching core subjects in elementary schools, including math, English language arts, science and social studies. 

The bill takes effect in the 2027-28 school year.

Any adjuncts already teaching these subjects could continue to do so if the Oklahoma State Board of Education grants their district a waiver and the teacher completes training in the science of reading, according to the law.

Schools will be forbidden from employing an adjunct teacher for more than five years unless similarly granted a waiver. If the state Board of Education gives permission, the school could continue employing the adjunct for another five years.

The state House originally passed even stricter language in the bill, but the Senate approved a version that more closely resembles what’s written in law today.

“We thought it was a pretty good bill, kind of making this thing what we needed (it) to be,” House Common Education Committee leader Rep. Dick Lowe, R-Amber, said during the interim study. “We didn’t get that through on the other side. We ended up taking a bill we weren’t real pleased with, but that’s OK. Life goes on, but we still think there’s some work to be done.”

Interim study examines approaches to teacher hiring

Lowe and other lawmakers, along with two members of the state Board of Education, heard from Moore and Oklahoma City school district leaders during the interim study Thursday.

Schools across the state should replicate what both districts are doing, Lowe said, particularly Moore’s New Teacher Induction Academy, which provides orientation, instructional coaching, mentorship and professional development to recent hires.

Moore Public Schools has never permitted use of uncertified adjunct teachers, Superintendent Robert Romines said during the study Thursday. 

Brad Herzer, chief talent officer of Oklahoma City Public Schools, said his district has stopped hiring adjuncts who hold no teaching certification.

Instead, both districts are focused on adding support for early career educators and reducing their numbers of emergency certified teachers, they said.

To receive an emergency certification, a candidate must have a bachelor’s degree but isn’t required to have any classroom training when first hired. 

Oklahoma City schools set an individual plan with each emergency certified teacher to help them reach full certification, Herzer said. By doing so, the number of district teachers holding an emergency certification has fallen by almost half.

The district no longer employs an emergency certified teacher after five years if the individual still hasn’t passed a certification exam, Herzer said.

Educators can have success even without traditional credentials, particularly if they have prior classroom experience as a substitute or a teaching aide, said Justine Morina, a senior policy director at ExcelinEd, a national organization focused on education. 

Adjunct teaching is a “strong and important pathway” to recruit new educators from different industries, she said during the interim study, but candidates should be able to demonstrate content-area knowledge through a related college degree.

Morina pointed to policies in other states like Mississippi, which allows a performance-based teaching license, and Arkansas, where teachers can work one grade above or below their certification area. Arkansas also allows teaching candidates who narrowly failed a certification exam to enter the classroom, as long as they demonstrate three successful years of teaching and pass either performance assessments or a micro-credential.

“If they’re coming into the classroom for the first time, we need to make sure they have certain guardrails, yes,” Morina said. “That’s (knowing) content; that’s ideally some prior teaching experience. If they’re already in the classroom, how do we then rethink it so we can look at who’s doing really well and make sure we retain those teachers and put them on pathways for long-term certification.”