Two weeks before his sixth-graders are to take their end-of-grade tests, Whitaker is facing the annual deadline that all North Carolina schools are up against to show good progress.

At the same time, he and Enfield Middle School confront additional challenges. Poverty is high in the schools of Halifax County, and teacher qualifications are low.

Whitaker is among six of Enfield Middle School's 24 teachers who are not fully certified. Six others hold probationary licenses as new teachers.

Beginning this fall, Enfield Middle School will face a strict federal requirement that every teacher of a core subject be "highly qualified."

The new standard, part of the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind legislation, will force hundreds of schools across the state to fill classroom vacancies only with teachers who are fully licensed. Teachers already employed will have four years to complete state licensing requirements.

The rule applies to schools with higher-than-average poverty that receive federal Title I funds -- almost half the state's 2,292 schools, including all 16 in Halifax County.

A similar standard for teacher quality was part of an order last month by Wake Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr. He ruled that the state is constitutionally obligated to put a "competent, certified, well-trained" teacher in every classroom.

The State Board of Education today will discuss changes in the state's licensing policies that would keep school systems from hiring many teachers who don't meet certification requirements.

"I can respect where they want to have fully qualified teachers," Whitaker said Monday as his 18 sixth-graders lined up for lunch. "But it's a challenge to teach here."

Whitaker, 25, earned an education degree two years ago from N.C. A&T State University in Greensboro. Although he did not meet state standards for teacher certification, he returned to teach at a school he had attended as a child. More than 90 percent of Enfield Middle School's students receive subsidized lunches because of low family income.

"Kids here don't have much to look forward to," Whitaker said. "I wanted to come back here to start to show kids they can be successful if they try."

Even the state's most affluent school systems have been unable to find all the qualified teachers they need. The new federal standards are putting more pressure on school systems to hire licensed teachers at a time when their numbers are stagnant.

The No Child Left Behind law requires states to set demanding standards for teacher quality and to close licensing loopholes that permit underqualified instructors in the classroom. In North Carolina, schools have had to rely increasingly on teachers hired under provisional standards less rigorous than full licensure.

"There is a problem because there is a teacher shortage," said Gary Jarrett, a personnel specialist with the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. "It's going to be difficult to find teachers who meet the federal criteria."

Nowhere in North Carolina are schools relying more heavily on underqualified teachers than in the state's poorest school systems. In three of the five rural school systems that filed the Leandro lawsuit over school funding in 1994 -- on which Manning ruled last month -- more than 30 percent of teachers lack full certification. In 1997, the state high court ruled in the Leandro case that the state is constitutionally obligated to provide "sound, basic education" to every child.

Halifax County, about 75 miles northeast of Raleigh and one of the Leandro counties, has the largest proportion of underqualified teachers of any school system in the state, at 35 percent. The county provides the same modest yearly pay supplement of $250 to all teachers, beginning or veteran. By contrast, a first-year teacher in Wake earns a local supplement of $2,900; a 30-year teacher, $7,150.

Halifax often hires teachers who have not earned an education degree or, for one reason or another, haven't met all the requirements for a teaching license.

Whitaker fell just shy of the 2.5 minimum college grade-point average required for a teaching credential, so he was hired on an emergency permit. To earn his credential, he has been taking teaching courses at nearby colleges and must pass a national teachers' examination.

Enfield's principal, Julius Webb, said that with half his faculty inexperienced or underqualified, the school has to struggle to provide support for teachers.

"Working with 12 new teachers is a lot to expect," Webb said.

Almost half of the county's 373 teachers have less than two years of classroom experience.

Teacher shortage

At the other end of Halifax County, Glenwood Mitchell has been wrestling with the same problem. As principal of Northwest Halifax High School, one of 13 high schools statewide branded last year as low performing, Mitchell knows all about the importance of well-trained, capable teachers.

Mitchell agrees with the new federal Title I rules on teacher qualifications. He said he likes the rigorous standard set by Manning.

But he struggles to find and keep even minimally qualified teachers.

"I have a hard time finding teachers, period," Mitchell said. "The federal legislation is wonderful if those people were out there to be hired. I haven't been able to find them. I don't argue with Manning, but where do you find those people?"

After classes Monday, Mitchell interrupted an interview with a reporter to speak with three young teachers who told him they won't be returning next year. Among them, he said, was one of the school's most capable science teachers. She plans to attend graduate school but not in education.

This year, 16 of the 53 teachers at Northwest High School have backgrounds in their subjects but lack formal training to teach. Two of the school's six math teachers this year are long-term substitutes.

"That has to impact what end-of-course test scores will look like," Mitchell said.

But Mitchell said he has no choice but to staff classrooms with teachers who lack the kind of full credentials the federal law and Manning's order now require.

He and other educators say the state must greatly expand efforts to recruit teachers and retain those with experience if it has any hope of meeting the new federal guidelines or Manning's order.

"The teaching profession is going to have to be more attractive in terms of salary," Mitchell said, "and the working conditions are going to have to be comparable with other jobs that graduates are able to get."

Teaching programs in North Carolina's public universities graduate about 3,500 new teachers a year, but only about 2,200 of them take classroom jobs in the state. North Carolina schools must fill about 9,000 teaching vacancies each year.

Nearly 17 percent of the state's 85,000 teachers this year lack the full certification that would meet the federal rules for a "highly qualified" teacher. About 1,000 teachers are working under "emergency" permits that require a four-year degree but do not require either a minimum college grade-point average or a college major in the subject they're teaching. More than 5,000 teachers either are working in classrooms after switching from other careers or have subject knowledge but lack training in how to teach.

But school leaders say setting a higher standard won't fix the problem of finding enough qualified teachers. In fact, they say, the tougher rules could backfire -- forcing schools to hire long-term substitutes for classes for which they can't find qualified teachers, or combine classes to ensure that students have teachers who meet the guidelines.