The Alamance-Burlington School System has a 40% vacancy rate for speech-language pathologists, or SLPs.
Officials are currently filling the gap by contracting out for services, but say in-person providers are hard to come by — an overwhelming majority of the contracted SLPs are virtual.
ABSS Executive Director of Exceptional Children Christina Armfield explained part of the problem, which is impacting districts across the country, at a recent school board meeting.
“We're not even graduating enough students to even fill the needs," Armfield said. "And for an SLP, it's a generalist degree. So I could actually leave tomorrow and go work in a hospital, or in a skilled nursing facility, or a private practice.”
Armfield says she’s talking to Alamance Community College about developing an SLP program in hopes of building a district pipeline. But it would take at least a couple of years to get up and running.