FELTON — After 32 years of teaching biology at San Lorenzo Valley High School, Bob Kemp will hang up his lab coat in June and hand over his collection of gene-splicing equipment to somebody younger.

"It’s going to be very, very difficult to replace him," said principal Valerie Pitts.

Area colleges and universities produced 285 new teachers last year for classrooms in Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties, but only 11 had preparation in science.

It’s not much better in two other specialties: seven teachers in math and 12 in special education. Those numbers pale next to the 295 teachers in science, math and special education who are nearing retirement.

Another challenge looms on the horizon. In two years, local school districts must comply with a provision of the federal "No Child Left Behind Act," which requires teachers to obtain a teaching credential or otherwise demonstrate they are qualified.

This year, 10 percent of the full-time teachers lack a full credential. Some are college graduates who obtained a so-called "emergency permit." Others were in a training program but hadn’t completed it.

Local school superintendents met Tuesday with university leaders to review the data and talk about how to get more prepared teachers in the pipeline.

UC Santa Cruz is attacking the problems on several fronts.

A new program enables university students to earn a teacher’s credential in 15 months, instead of the traditional two years. Enrollment has grown to 180 students, and the goal is to boost that number to 250.

This year, 422 students have declared an education minor, up from 301 four years ago. Yet only one student paired a biology major with an education minor four years ago and none this year. The numbers are similar in physics and only slightly higher in chemistry and biochemistry.

The campus has established outreach efforts at Watsonville High School and East Side Union High School in San Jose, aiming to increase the number of students taking algebra.

"If you don’t do well in ninth-grade algebra, you’re locked out of a math-science career," said acting UCSC Chancellor Martin Chemers.

He said the UC system can do more without spending a lot of money to increase the supply of teachers.

"With 160,000 employees, it’s not enticing people with money to do things, it’s coordinating people to get the most bang for the buck," he explained.

For example, UCSC could hire more faculty members to accommodate more education minors, and hire more veteran teachers to supervise student teachers when they go out to classrooms.

The campus also could add to its roster of classroom mentors at the New Teacher Center, which has reduced the attrition rate among rookie teachers from 50 percent to 10 percent.

A new idea to keep teachers, presented to the Santa Cruz City Council last week, would have the campus to lease land to the city or county to build housing for teachers, police officers and firefighters who might otherwise seek affordable homes elsewhere.

The median home price in Santa Cruz County has soared past $600,000, putting homes further out of reach for teachers, whose salaries average $48,000.

"Staffing is recruitment and retention," Chemers said. "If you retain more teachers, you don’t have to get as many new ones."

Still, with 25 percent of the 5,000 teachers in the tri-county region 55 or older, some of them will eventually join SLV’s Kemp in retirement.

Kemp, 56, was one of the first in the county to add gene-splicing to his biology curriculum a decade ago. He specializes in Advanced Placement biology, a college-level class that requires students to do lab work.

Rather than compete for the few local science teachers coming out of university programs, principal Pitts has come up with a creative solution: she plans to send junior high teachers to take classes this summer to prepare for this challenging, new assignment at the high school.

"I’m all for the university turning out more math and science teachers," she said.

Help wanted: Math and science teachers
UC Santa Cruz, CSU Monterey Bay and Bethany College all have teacher credential programs, but produce too few math and science teachers to meet local needs. Data collected last year by the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning in Santa Cruz show:

GRAYING POPULATION OF TEACHERS

One-fourth of the 5,776 full-time teachers are 55 or older, including:
156 in special education;

80 in science;

59 in math.

SOME UNDERPREPARED TO TEACH

646 full-time teachers lack a full credential, including:
130 in special education;

78 in science;

70 in math.

FEW GRADS SPECIALIZE IN MATH, SCIENCE OR SPECIAL EDUCATION

Programs produced 231 elementary and 54 high school teachers;

Only 7 had a math specialty;

11 had a science specialty, all from UCSC;

12 had a special education specialty, all from CSU Monterey Bay.

Source: Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, www.cftl.org.