The Unseen Load: What Teacher Shortages Really Cost Us

They are doing a lot. Do you even see it?

Every time we talk about the teacher shortage, we focus on numbers—how many openings, how long it’s taking to fill them, the pipeline data. But we rarely talk about the human cost.

We rarely talk about the way a single unfilled position ripples outward across an entire school building.

Here’s what that looks like:

1. The Substitute Shuffle

When no one applies for a vacant position, it often falls to a long-term sub—sometimes wonderful, sometimes brand-new, almost always uncertified. Who supports that sub? The teacher next door. The coach who’s stretched thin. The department lead who already has a full load.

“Can you pop in just for a minute?” becomes every lunch, every prep, every day.

2. Classroom Disruptions Multiply

Kids feel the chaos. They notice when there’s a revolving door of subs. Behavioral disruptions increase. Students test boundaries. Other teachers are pulled to cover, reset norms, and debrief incidents they didn’t cause but now must manage.

3. Testing Season: Now Featuring Extra Duties

Many districts require proctors to be certified staff. So who steps up when the coverage pool is dry? Your top teachers. Your coaches. Your interventionists. The people you need the most during testing season are pulled from their actual jobs to babysit a bubbling session.

4. The Emotional Labor of Holding It All Together

When staffing is unstable, schools get leakier. Which means…

• More kids showing up in your room who don’t belong there.

• More adults needing a shoulder to cry on.

• More team check-ins, morale-boosting text threads, and 1:1s that eat into planning time.

It's beautiful. It builds community. And it’s also unpaid labor—emotional and otherwise.

5. The Ghost of Planning Time

Coverage. Coverage. Coverage. Teachers lose their prep to cover classes, and that’s time that doesn’t get made up. That’s the anchor chart that doesn’t get built. The feedback that doesn’t get written. The next day’s lesson that gets downloaded instead of designed.

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What Can Leaders and Coaches Do?

This isn't a guilt trip. It's a reality check. Once we see it clearly, we can respond with clarity, too.

Here are a few places to start:

1. Audit the Invisible

Start tracking where time is going. Who’s giving up preps? Who’s covering lunches, proctoring tests, coaching subs, debriefing behaviors? Don’t assume. Document. It’s not to assign blame—it’s to see the full picture and intervene.

2. Rethink the Coaching Calendar

When people are stretched thin, coaching can’t feel like “one more thing.” Focus on supportive presence:

• Co-plan with the person covering a sub’s class

• Model high-structure routines to reduce disruption

• Offer “mini-coaching” sessions that target one pain point and offer one win

3. Celebrate the Glue

Some of your most valuable staff right now are not the ones in the spotlight—they’re the glue. The ones checking on the sub. The ones texting you at night about a student in crisis. Name it. Celebrate it. Don’t let invisible labor stay invisible.

4. Rotate the Load

Avoid the burnout loop. Don’t let the same 4 teachers always say yes. Create a rotating coverage plan and hold firm boundaries around protected time for all staff—especially your strongest ones.

5. Tell the Truth

Transparency builds trust. Talk openly with your team about how the shortage is impacting the building—and what you’re doing to mitigate it. Don’t spin it. Name it.

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The teacher shortage isn’t just a pipeline problem. It’s a people problem. The weight doesn’t disappear. It just shifts—onto the backs of the people who are still here.

Let’s honor that weight and lead in a way that helps lift it.