My Recruiting Blog

School systems throughout the country are struggling to keep educators in the classroom. At one time hiring enough new teachers to keep up with the increasing number of students was the main problem. Now it seems that convincing educators to stay is the issue.

The Clark County school district, which includes the city of Las Vegas, is not unaware of the fact that teacher retention, as well as recruiting, has become a problem. During the 2005-2006 school year the district lost 9.3 percent of their teaching staff, which means approximately 17,353 educators resigned by the end of the spring semester, which greatly impacts the need to refill teaching jobs in Las Vegas. The percentage of teachers that quit each year has been steadily rising. At the end of the 2004-2005 school year, the district lost 6.5 percent of their teachers and the year before that resulted in the loss of 5.99 percent of educators.

Before the Clark County Board of Education can focus on raising the level of teacher retention, they must fill the vacant classrooms for the coming school year. As of June 29, the district was 766 teachers short. Still, the shows some progress from two weeks prior when the district was lacking 1,163 educators. Many of the positions that still need to be filled are in the more difficult disciplines such as math or science. There is also a strong need for special education teachers.

Clark County teachers are also concerned over the fact that their might be some change in the union representing them. Currently Teamsters Local 14 is campaigning to replace the Clark County Education Association. In order to do this, Local 14 will have to get more than half of the districts licensed educators to sign pledge cards.

At this time the leaders of Local 14 seem confident in their ability to do this, despite the fact that some individuals believe that the organization isn’t interested in what’s best for the teachers. Some are worried that the organization is simply concerned with getting their hands on educators health trust, approximately $75 million a year, so that they can replace it with a cheaper HMO.

The current representative of the area’s educators has been responsible for winning 92 percent of grievances against the district last year. It has also been responsible for a $4,000 raise in new teacher’s salaries and a $7,000 raise for veteran teachers.

Labels: Las Vegas Jobs