CCSD to start school year 700 teachers short

Despite the promise of $5,000 signing bonuses, the Clark County School District expects to start the school year next month with at least 700 teacher vacancies.

The State Board of Education on Thursday approved nearly $10 million in new teacher recruitment grants, with Clark County schools set to receive $8.32 million of the total award.

That amount will fund a base bonus of $4,000 for up to 2,080 new teachers in 186 at-risk or poorly performing schools in Clark County. But the district plans to offer a full $5,000 incentive for all teachers hired before Aug. 31.

Late hires will receive a pro-rated amount.

Nonetheless, district officials told the state board that they "hopefully" will hire just 1,600 of the 2,300 teachers needed to fill all vacancies before classes start on Aug. 24.

"It's really hard to hear that there will be at least 700 vacancies on the first day of a school as a best-case scenario," said board member Victor Wakefield, who called the shortage "Groundhog Day" in a reference to a similar hiring crunch last year.

Ryan Yanagi, deputy human resources officer for the district, said principals mostly have hired traditional teacher candidates or through fast-track teacher-training programs.

The Clark County School Board last week also declared a critical labor shortage in the elementary grades to allow principals to hire retired teachers on a full- or part-time basis.

"Plan B will be substitutes in the classrooms," Yanagi said. "Principals usually have long-term subs that they know and use multiple times at their school sites, so they're kind of preparing that list and getting subs ready to go."

Clark County schools have seen a concerning rise in vacancies at the elementary level and in special education programs.

As of July 31, the district reported 548 vacancies in kindergarten through fifth-grade and 248 vacancies in special education. That's up from 187 and 91, respectively, at the same point last year.

Also on Thursday, the state board approved a list of other incentives to help recruit and retain teachers at schools with high populations of low-income students or English language learners and at campuses with poor performance ratings.

Victoria Carreon with the Guinn Center for Policy Priorities addressed the board early Thursday, hoping to convince members to approve more incentives geared toward senior and highly effective educators to those hard-to-teach schools.

"We already have a disproportionate number of new teachers at high-poverty schools," Carreon said.

Contact Neal Morton at nmorton@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279. Find him on Twitter: @nealtmorton