While Bernards High School’s French teacher, Madame Thatcher, is away on maternity leave, the 2023-2024 French students have to adjust to an extensive change. Not only do they have to adapt to having a new teacher for the next couple of months, but they also have to become familiar with having a virtual teacher.

Madame Cherif will be working as the temporary teacher for the French department during Madame Thatcher’s maternity leave. Mrs. Thatcher’s plans to return are tentatively at the end of March, after Spring break. BHS was lucky to have received the assistance of Madame Cherif and the Elevate program.

“Elevate was super wonderful to work with…They learned our bell schedule, which was an important thing for this. And the main thing we were looking for was finding the same teacher the whole time through, and for all the classes,” said Mr. Catelli, Bernard’s High School language supervisor.

It was fortunate that this program was recommended to BHS by another language superintendent, as all of their teachers are booked through the rest of the year. Although the department hoped to find an in person substitute for this time, it was not possible due to the teacher shortages.

There is a national teacher shortage across the country for a multitude of subjects, not just French. The cause for teacher shortages is generally due to low salaries, workloads increasing, political aspects, and worsening student behavior. Another to consider is a lack of interest in this career.

“[The teacher shortage] is affecting every school in New Jersey and nationwide. Even colleges had a lack of people studying for this profession…It’s a shortage of students wanting to study to become teachers,” said Mr. Catelli, “Realistically, there are not enough people going into the profession to fill all of the roles that are out there.”

There is further cause for language teacher shortages as there is a lack of incentive and resources surrounding this particular field. The maternity leave position that was available is also not appealing to applicants as most are looking for a permanent position.

“If anyone wants to be a teacher, a world language teacher especially, they will get a job very quickly,” said Mr. Catelli.

Madame Cherif, although not physically in the classroom, is only teaching Bernards high school students. She is teaching in a different state, logging in to teach multiple classes a day. As well as the virtual teacher, classes also have a “class coach” which is a permanent in person supervisor for the class. These are teachers who remain in the classroom to oversee the class as well as help them with any problems that may occur. If students have questions for Madame Cherif, they are to contact the class coach who will then get in contact with the teacher.

Mr. Catelli said, “The quizzes will come through virtually…homework will be provided by the class coach or virtually.”

The topic of a virtual teacher begs the question of whether this will be an effective way to learn and retain the knowledge that would previously be taught with Madame Thatcher. Only time will tell on this issue, but students have their doubts that they will learn a year’s worth of knowledge with this change.

“I feel that the change is interesting, but also disappointing, as the program is cool, but I’m afraid that having a virtual teacher will harm my ability to learn the subject because of the lack of resources that one would have with an in-person teacher,” said Jessica Fu ‘26.

Although this is not by any means an ideal situation, considering the teacher shortage, this is the next best alternative to an in person teacher.