We Ran Out of Teachers Before We Ran Out of Students

Every business hits a point where the thing holding you back moves.

For a long time at Premier Dental Academy of Longview the hard part was students. Convince somebody in East Texas that twelve weeks could change what they earn. Convince them a school would not take their money and disappear.

That is not the hard part anymore.

The hard part now is teachers. So we published a hiring page and put every number on it.

What the page says out loud

Most job ads in this world tell you almost nothing until you are already invested. Apply, wait, interview, and somewhere near the end you finally find out what it pays and what it will cost you.

I did not want to run that.

The instructor page states the pay before it asks for your name. Twenty dollars an hour to start. It states the commitment before it asks for your name. Twelve weeks, one full cohort, by contract, because a student who starts with one teacher should finish with that teacher. It states the bar before it asks for your name. Five or more years as a Registered Dental Assistant and a current Texas license in good standing.

The fee question, answered before anybody asks it

Here is the part I care about most, because this is where this industry gets ugly.

There are outfits that turn "become an instructor" into a product. You pay them to apply. You pay them for a packet. You pay them for a credential they invented. The applicant is the customer and nobody says so.

Texas requires an instructor license and school approval before you can teach. That is a real state requirement and it carries a real fee, roughly one hundred to one hundred fifty dollars.

So the page says it. In plain words, twice, before the form.

You pay nothing to apply. Nothing to be reviewed. Nothing to interview. The state fee shows up only after we have approved you internally, and it goes to the state, not to us.

If a school will not tell you what a thing costs before you commit, that is the whole review. You already know everything you need to know.

Why the bottleneck moved

The school has put 406 or more graduates into the field with a placement rate above 85 percent, and works with 17 or more hiring partners. Cohorts run twelve weeks.

Do that math on a napkin. Every partner office that hires a graduate wants another one next quarter. Demand does not slow down because the classroom is full. It stacks.

The only thing that scales a trade school is teachers, and you cannot manufacture a good one. You can only go find a Registered Dental Assistant who has already spent years doing the job right and ask her to hand it down.

That is a recruiting problem, not a marketing problem. Different work entirely.

What the job actually pays for

The school runs a free salary tool for East Texas, built on Bureau of Labor Statistics 2024 data plus a survey of twelve Longview area dental offices from March 2026. For a Registered Dental Assistant starting out in Longview it estimates about forty two thousand a year, in a range of thirty eight to forty six thousand.

The page says plainly that these are estimates and that a real offer depends on the office, the interview, and how well somebody negotiates. I like that it says that. A number with no caveat is a sales pitch.

That range is what an instructor is handing somebody. Not a certificate. A floor under a family.

The comeback ledger entry

I do not write these to brag. I write them because a few years ago the working assumption about me was that I was finished, and the only honest answer to that is a list of things that exist now and did not exist then.

This one is a line on the ledger. A school in Longview needs experienced RDAs to come teach, and it is asking for them in the open, with the pay printed, the commitment printed, and the one fee disclosed and pointed at the state instead of hidden in a packet.

If you are an RDA in East Texas with five years in and you have ever thought you could teach this better than how you were taught, the application is free and takes about two minutes.

If you are not, send this to the best assistant you know. That is the whole ask.

Do not threaten anybody. Do not harass anybody. Read it, share it, and if you know somebody who should be teaching, put it in front of her.