By Denise Smith Amos
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Dozens of principals and teachers in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati are competing for a place in a five-year training program at Xavier University designed to address future shortages of principals and math and science teachers.

About 200 educators at 20 archdiocese schools will receive extra training at Xavier beginning in January.

New principals and existing ones will get leadership training. Grade school teachers' will brush up on math and science.

Brother Joseph Kamis, superintendent of Catholic schools for the archdiocese, said Catholic schools are subject to the same trends plaguing some public school systems: Baby Boomer teachers and principals are nearing retirement age, but the pool of replacements is too small.

Experts say that in the next decade, four of 10 principals now on the job will retire. Kamis couldn't estimate the number of principals in Cincinnati's Catholic schools near retirement but said the archdiocese replaced 12 of 94 principals this year.

"We can keep up with it if it stays like that," Kamis said. "But I don't expect it to. The teaching profession is going to get hit in the next five to 10 years with Baby Boomers retiring in waves."

There's already a shortage of qualified math and science teachers felt acutely in Catholic schools, which can't compete with public school salaries, Kamis said.

Some national projections estimate that in 10 years, U.S. schools will have 1.7 to 2.7 million teaching positions open - including nearly 200,000 unfilled math and science positions, mostly in high schools.

But high schools aren't part of this training program. Called the Initiative for Catholic Schools, it involves 20 elementary schools, which will send four-person teams - a principal, an aspiring principal, a primary teacher (grades 1-3) and a higher-grade teacher (grades 4-6).

The primary grade teacher will focus on math, while the higher-grade teacher will take science at Xavier one Friday a month and for two weeks in the summer.

The Clement and Ann Buenger Foundation is funding the initiative with a $2 million gift, which includes paying for substitute teachers. Selection of the schools is expected by Nov. 17.

Ten aspiring principals will have their master's degree paid for, an estimated value of $10,000 to $15,000 value, Kamis said.

E-mail damos@enquirer.com