The COVID-19 pandemic made the already tricky process of relocating employees even trickier in many ways. An especially complex facet of employee relocation is relocating schools for employees’ children. According to data from Relocate USA, “School is cited as a top reason expats return home early from an assignment."
Three Ricklin-Echikson Associates (REA) coaches shared their latest experiences helping clients find and relocate schools in the U.S. Here are three major trends for school relocation in 2023 that mobility industry professionals should consider.
1.Teacher Shortages Have Thrown a Wrench in the Works
Roughly one in six teachers said they wanted to leave their job in 2019, but that jumped to one in four by the 2020-2021 academic year. According to data from the Hechinger Report, schools were short nearly 360,000 positions as of September 2022. This shortage is hitting special education, substitute, and early education professionals particularly hard.
“Clients with small children have been finding it difficult to find preschools with spaces open, as the country is experiencing a shortage of teachers and many independent preschools closed for good during COVID-19," said Connecticut-based REA coach Judith Garfinkel. “In researching for a client with a child on the autism spectrum, I spoke to programs that had to close because they couldn’t hire enough well-trained staff."
This is affecting how employees work, too. Parents with more intensive educational needs for their children or younger children find themselves delayed in their return to in-person work or finding new jobs because of the lack of options. “Clients wanting to go back to work are putting it off because they can’t find schooling that allows them to do that," Garfinkel said.
The teacher shortage is also affecting how parents are picking out new schools. Garfinkel says that this drastic teacher shortage means that traditional data, such as school ratings, could be skewed and may not be useful information to parents looking to relocate due. While school ratings and other data can be helpful, they do not provide a holistic view of what the schools may be struggling with in the current academic year.
However, Garfinkel says that she is optimistic about efforts to reverse the teacher shortage. “I’m hopeful that schools and education-training institutions continue on the path that many have begun already, to innovate ways to bring people into the field, like alternative certification, higher pay, and signing bonuses for teachers," Garfinkel said.
2. Some Processes Are Back to Normal, and Some Have Gotten Worse
After the chaos of at-home virtual learning for children during the COVID-19 pandemic, Oregon-based REA coach Sally Anne Carroll does see a light at the end of the tunnel. “Schools were a major issue when they were doing hybrid or at-home learning," she said. “It was difficult for parents to manage homeschooling, particularly in a new district where they didn’t have the relationships or familiarity with the school."
The return of in-person learning has also helped relocating parents with the search for the right schools in their new areas. “Now that learning is in-person again, the clients I’ve worked with all seem to be back to pre-pandemic school research and selection processes," Carroll said. “The biggest issue that I see with my clients is affording a home or rental in their desired school districts, especially in Seattle."
3. Poor Organization Post-COVID-19 Can Disrupt Challenging Relocations
While the typical school relocation can be challenging, schools that are still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic can have specific problems with organization and information. Mobility industry professionals may have to delve deeper than in previous years to make sure that the information they receive about their clients’ new schools is correct.
REA coach Liz Searcy recounted the story of a client she helped move from Chicago to the Katy, Texas, area with their three children. “Upon researching the schools for the family, I encountered a fairly complex situation," Searcy said. “My research showed that one elementary school was assigned to the family’s address, but when I called the school to learn more, I had to talk to several school clerks before getting the right information. I was informed that now their school was at full capacity and the client’s child was being rerouted to another school."
With the advent of remote work, some states (particularly in the West) are seeing a population boom and, consequently, schools may fill up quickly. Gallatin Country in Montana saw the number of students in their public school system increase by 21% in October 2022. In comparison, statewide growth was just 4%.
“This notification was very surprising to me," Searcy said. “But it also shed light on the fact that so many families are relocating to Texas and to that area in particular."
After looking at real estate information online and seeing there had been no changes, Searcy got back in contact with the school to verify her research. Finally, another school clerk told Searcy that, despite the reroute, the online school information would still be displayed because the change in schools could not be modified into the real estate information. Searcy successfully obtained and shared information on the new school to her clients, who were grateful, but the problem may remain for other relocating employees.
“If I had not investigated further," Searcy said, “the misinformation would have caused unnecessary chaos for the family in the midst of an already challenging relocation."