By Jackson Lynde - CCS Journalism
Teacher shortages have been striking schools all across the United States since 2017 according to nea.org, affecting millions of schools and the faculty and students that attend said schools. The pandemic in 2020 only added fuel to the fire of this shortage. Many people have also been discouraged from pursuing careers in the education system for reasons like inadequate pay and minimal benefits.
The teacher shortage has been having its effect on Crofton Community Schools these last couple of years, as well. “It’s affected us just like it’s affected every other school in the state,” said superintendent, Mark Wragge.
With the retirement of Stephanie Mann in the spring of 2024, the school needed a new agriculture teacher and FFA Advisor. The school ended up going an entire semester without any Agriculture classes until the hire of current Agriculture teacher and FFA Advisor Abigail Lutjelusche in January of 2025.
Recently, math has taken the brunt of the teacher shortage in Crofton after the retirement of Becky Bruening in the spring of 2025. The school hired Karmen Koch, but she moved to Wausa to teach there after one year, resulting in Crofton Community Schools to request that Bruening return for the fall semester of 2025 to teach while they searched for another teacher. Bruening returned on a part-time agreement, only teaching for two blocks in the morning.
Bruening had to balance three separate classes per block during her semester-long return, including algebra two, college math, and calculus. This could be stressful for any one teacher to do on their own. “It was a three ring circus at times,” explained Bruening.
In order to balance these classes, students in the college math and calculus courses had to take separate learning classes. The students had to follow lesson plans independently from Bruening. “Bruening would have to teach an entirely different class while we went to the library and did our work by watching videos she had prepared for us,” said Senior Darin Babcock.
Currently, Crofton has hired Dan Hall to teach full time for only the spring semester of 2026. Wragge and Hall are former college teammates of the Doane Tigers men's basketball team. While golfing, Wragge asked a favor from his friend to come out of retirement to help temporarily relieve Crofton from its stressful situation. Hall decided to take the job to help his daughter pay for her wedding.
Hall has previously taught at Millard West in Omaha, where he lives. He currently has an apartment in Crofton where he stays temporarily. “I stay here during the week and go back to Omaha on the weekend,” said Hall.
Crofton continued to search for applicants for the math teacher positions, “We started advertising in November and we went all of November, December, and January with no applicants,” said Wragge. Things turned around and in the last two weeks Crofton found two applicants and offered a contract to one of them. Crofton Community Schools is currently waiting on an approval from the Board of Education, but the future is looking brighter.