Lake Orion’s teacher shortage claim doesn’t add up

Claims of a teacher shortage by Lake Orion’s school superintendent do not match up with data from the district itself.

Heidi Mercer, superintendent of Lake Orion Community Schools, claimed teachers are in short supply. Her comments came in a Michigan Education Association profile of 2026-27 teacher of the year Erik Meerschaert, a Lake Orion special education teacher.

“The work that they do — not only during the school day but beyond, and not only with our students but with families — is incredible,” Mercer said. “There is such a shortage, and we need people like Erik. His passion, his dedication, his love for students is amazing.”

The district’s data do not support a claim of a general teacher shortage. The district had 450 teachers in 2017-18, and that number increased to about 595 by 2024-25, according to MiSchoolData.

The district’s student enrollment has dropped over the same time period, from 7,466 students to 6,608 students over that seven-year span.

That does not mean there are no shortages in some specialty areas. Filling special education positions has historically been problematic, and not only in Michigan. Nationally, school districts have addressed this by paying teachers in hard-to-fill positions more. For example, the Philadelphia school district has a separate and higher-paying wage scale for special education teachers.

But support for high-performing teachers and tough-to-fill positions has never been dealt with effectively by the state’s teachers unions, and sometimes the school districts themselves.

Mercer told Michigan Capitol Confidential in an email that the district has merit pay. It’s a $150 bonus for anyone rated effective or higher.

A bonus of $150 is not a meaningful definition of merit pay, however. And in 2024-25, most of the district’s teachers, 552 — 99.82% of all teachers — were rated “effective.”

The MEA article stated that Meerschaert, an MEA member, joined the district seven years ago.

Meerschaert’s gross pay has increased from $60,072 in 2021 to $76,877 in 2025. That compensation includes any extra pay he may have received for taking on extra responsibilities. For example, the teachers contract pays teachers $50 for every extra class session they teach if substitutes are not available. A teacher who teaches a split classroom that has students from multiple grades gets a $1,500 stipend.

Union-negotiated contracts pay teachers based on two criteria – years of experience and level of education credits they’ve earned.

Generally, a teacher starting in a district starts at the bottom of the pay scale, regardless of their effectiveness.

Mercer said that the district has talked to teachers unions about paying more to teachers who work in hard-to-fill positions. But it hasn’t happened yet.

Some school districts in Michigan have found a way around the teachers contract as they try to attract teachers to hard-to-fill positions. In those districts, teachers start higher up on the pay scale than their experience would otherwise grant them. For example, a first-year teacher may start on the sixth-step of the contract.