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Bill would require SAU superintendents to report vacancies to give Maine a statewide vacancy snapshot
Summary
LD 2015 would require superintendents to report annually the number and type of vacant teacher and educational technician positions so Maine can map shortages and better align workforce responses; DOE described a two-year pilot and stakeholder organizations backed the proposal.
Representative Holly Sargent introduced LD 2015, an act to require school administrative unit superintendents to report data related to educator vacancies annually to the Department of Education.
Michael Perry of the Maine Department of Education testified that the proposal follows a pilot process in which the department refined the definition of a vacancy and tested collection methods. Perry said the pilot included a pre-pilot, a pilot year, and a second pilot year that involved 71 participating districts; DOE also used one-time funding to build a GIS mapping database to visualize vacancy patterns by geography. Perry said the department wants to fold this reporting into regular annual staffing reports to provide a statewide snapshot of teacher and educational technician shortages.
Stakeholders backed the bill. Eileen King of the Maine School Management Association said consistent statewide vacancy reporting would ground workforce discussions in actual data and help target recruitment and development strategies. Jody Mezzanati of Educate Maine said standardized vacancy counts would reveal where shortages are most acute and argued, "We cannot solve what we cannot measure." John Kosinski of the Maine Education Association highlighted 2025 retirement and resignation figures he said were in association testimony (903 teacher retirements and roughly 460 quits in 2025) and suggested expanding reporting scope to include other critical roles (for example, school counselors, nurses and bus drivers) and to track positions that are eliminated after prolonged vacancy.
Committee members asked about definitions, timing, technology and how the DOE would share criteria with superintendents; Perry described the multi-year pilot, how definitions were refined, and the GIS tool used to visualize results. The Department said it is ready to bring the collection statewide with legislative authority and that it will be available for work session.
Next steps: DOE and stakeholder groups will refine implementation details at work session; committee did not take a floor vote on LD 2015 at the public hearing.
