Mark Macyk will be starting his fifth year teaching middle school English in Nicetown this August. He likes where he works, but one problem has persisted – teacher vacancies.

“In this one English room right next to me, we’ve had nine teachers in there over the course of five years. We tried the gym teacher in there. We tried a long-term sub,” he said. “We’ve tried certified people, uncertified people, and what all of them have in common is that they were not ready.”

Macyk is a teacher at Edward T. Steel School in North Philly’s Hunting Park neighborhood. He said challenges brought by vacancies and turnover have led to lasting effects on students and staff.

“When you have this kind of disruption, you don’t learn anything,” he said. “So we have all these situations where you get this whol

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