By Cynthia Grau/WJEZ News

Legislators are looking ahead to 2018 for not only the election, but also tackling the teacher shortage throughout the state.

State Senator Jason Barickman knows that smaller rural downstate schools are the ones suffering with the problem.

“I’m sure that we will focus on what is clearly a teacher shortage in the state. The fact that many of our schools are having difficulty recruiting and retaining the top-notch teachers that we need to educate our students. It’s not necessarily unique to Illinois, but we’ve certainly got some challenges in it in Illinois. It’s hitting our rural schools really hard. It’s hitting our specialty teachers really hard. It’s tough to recruit a science teacher or special ed teacher. So, I think we’ll turn our attention towards that issue and hope we’ll see some progress with that issue,” Barickman said.