by Karen Speidel
Desi Severance grew up on a small beef farm in Minnesota. Agriculture was one of her first loves, but she never intended it to become her occupation.
Thankfully for Wyndmere Public School, Severance did in fact choose to study agriculture education, as North Dakota follows the national trend of having a shortage of teachers in this field.
Severance is the ag teacher and Future Farmers of America advisor at Wyndmere Public School, and has worked in that capacity for five years.
She is among a dwindling group of instructors who teach ag education in North Dakota schools as districts across the state are scrambling to fill openings in their ag programs. At the start of the school year four of North Dakota’s 79 programs were without instructors and FFA advisors.
Severance said this problem is nationwide as the entire country is seeing a decline in ag education teachers. The situation in North Dakota is only worsening as about 16 percent of those teaching ag education are eligible for retirement and there are fewer teachers taking the program to fill in the ranks.
Currently, North Dakota State University is the only university in the state that offers a degree in agriculture education.
There are several groups working to reverse this trend.
The North Dakota Ag Teacher Association started a retention and recruitment program in which teachers are trying to find their own replacements by recruiting students to one day become ag educators.
Severance is part of this committee and said she is always on the lookout among Wyndmere students who show promise. She hopes she found a future ag educator in junior Paul Moffet, who attended an ag recruitment day at North Dakota State University last week.
“He would excel in the field. He loves the shop, he loves the subjects and loves helping people. He’s just so great at it, so I put a bug in his ear,” Severance said with a grin. She hopes that one day Moffet will be her colleague. She stressed that he could work anywhere in the state because of the many shortages.
Nationally, there is a similar group working across the U.S. to recruit new teachers, and retain those who already are in the field
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Source: Daily News
