CCSD classroom vacancies are nearly filled, officials say

Sabine Lamay started her career with the Clark County School District as an assistant in special education.

Eight years later, she is about to start her first year as a sixth grade English language resource teacher at Grant Sawyer Middle School.

“I knew there was a need for special education teachers,” Lamay said.

Of 280 vacancies at the district as of July 21, a large number are positions in special education, RoAnn Triana, chief human resources officer, said Tuesday during a teacher recruitment and retention event at M Resort in Henderson.

“Nationwide this is a very tough field to fill,” she said. “We are looking at alternate ways to certify them.”

On the first day of school in 2024, the district had 1,034 vacancies.

Lamay said she found the Public Education Foundation’s Teacher Fastrack program through district emails seeking people interested in becoming licensed teachers. That program paid for her to go back to school and prepared her to go on to UNLV’s Teacher Apprenticeship Program, which allows students to continue working in their school jobs as they work toward teacher licensure.

“It’s one year straight. It’s rigorous. There’s no time off,” Lamay said. “It was difficult, but it was worth it.”

Her story is an example of just one of the district’s efforts to recruit and retain teachers.

Recruitment and retention efforts

When the new school year starts on Aug. 11, 97 percent of classrooms are expected to have licensed teachers, with a starting salary of $57,471, Deputy Superintendent Jesse Welsh said in a news conference during the event.

“While we know that this team will not stop working until we have a licensed teacher in every single classroom,” he said, “we want to recognize the significant progress that we have made as a district.”

The district has hired over 450 more licensed educators than last year, with over 2,700 total teachers in the district this year, Triana said. Teachers joined the district from all over the country with some even coming from outside the United States.

District officials also touted a high rate of teachers remaining in CCSD. Triana said that most recent data showed a 94.4 percent teacher retention rate. In comparison, last year the Review-Journal reported a 93 percent retention rate.

“This is a result of the salary increases and incentives we’ve been able to implement, high quality instructional materials, rigorous professional learning, and the positive teaching and learning environments schools and departments have been able to cultivate throughout the district,” she said.

Contact Megan Howard at mhoward@reviewjournal.com. Follow her on X at @meganmhxward.