It’s a competitive market when it comes to hiring teachers these days and recruitment starts early.
Why? In recent years the state has made a lot changes as it increased education funding to meet the McCleary Decision. Those changes include reduced class sizes, new graduation requirements, and most recently, how it pays teachers.
Full day kindergarten is now state-funded. K-3 class size reductions are being implemented. Two years of high school foreign language is now required to graduate, along with more math and science. In response many districts have added portables to elementary schools and moved away from traditional 6-period high school days.
Most notably, these new mandates created a need for more teachers across the state – right as the state legislature also overhauled how it pays teachers. Pay structure changes include increasing salaries for starting teachers; increasing salaries in high cost of living districts; and increasing pay for foreign language and STEM teachers.
Over the past three years SVSD has hired approximately 100 new teachers – and they’re not done yet. The district anticipates hiring more teachers for the 2018-19 school to further reduce K-3 class size, as Mount Si moves to a 7-period school day and enrollment continues to increase due to population growth in Snoqualmie and North Bend.
So… teacher recruitment has become extremely important for SVSD AND it starts now.
On Thursday, February 15th, the district will hold an Education Career Fair where district staff and school faculty will be on hand to discuss open positions. Attendees can learn about these positions and interview during the event.
During planning discussions for the upcoming February 13th SVSD levy, the district said it anticipated paying [some] teachers more in the coming years due to the new state pay structure, but not all details of the overhauled pay model were known at that time. The current teacher’s union contract expires on August 31, 2019. Negotiations for a new contract should start next year.
Comments
Simple problem. Complex answers. Where do the new teachers live. A tip…..this is happening everywhere that any sane person would want to teach in western Washington. ….and in a few places only fit for masochists.