Gilroy
– School starts Monday, but at least three classrooms are still
without teachers.
The district began this week needing to hire seven people and
ended the week with six positions still open, even after hiring
four teachers. It was two steps forward, one step back.
By Lori Stuenkel
Gilroy – School starts Monday, but at least three classrooms are still without teachers.
The district began this week needing to hire seven people and ended the week with six positions still open, even after hiring four teachers. It was two steps forward, one step back.
“We were whittling that six down, and then …,” said Gene Sakahara, GUSD recruiter.
Gilroy Unified School District still needs a high school Spanish teacher, literacy facilitator, speech therapist and three other elementary and secondary level teachers.
Linda Piceno, GUSD’s assistant superintendent of human resources, said the slots will be filled quickly, in part thanks to an education job Web site that has streamlined the hiring process. The district is having little trouble finding applicants: Six people were interviewed this week for one position.
Having multiple job openings at the start of the year is not unusual, she said, but the district must rush to fill the vacancies that pop up unexpectedly.
“The hard part about hiring in August is that the people who are actively looking already have been hired by other districts,” Piceno said Tuesday.
GUSD contracted a high school English teacher, two first grade teachers and a hard-to-find middle school science teacher this week.
Three teachers resigned last week, one of them on Friday. Two were returning teachers, but one was new to the district. Two more people expected to start classes Monday – one already under contract – said they won’t be coming to Gilroy this year.
Some of the available positions are still open simply because potential hires find other jobs or, as with one of last week’s resignations, decide they don’t want to commute to Gilroy.
“There can be one offer to three different people who say yes, and before they come in and sign a contract, they have found another school district,” Piceno said.
One of this week’s last-minute exits from GUSD was already under contract, Sakahara said.
“She had to resign because she had some personal issues and she couldn’t see it getting resolved until November,” he said.
Another secondary level teacher announced Wednesday she would be leaving. Also under contract, that teacher will stay until a replacement can be found, Sakahara said.
“These are people who are human beings, like the rest of us, and they have things going on in their lives, as well,” he said. “I’ve been in this business long enough to know that these things happen.”
He credited the teachers who recently resigned with telling the district now, rather than after the start of the year, that they would not be able to fulfill their contracts.
One of the district’s vacancies – a speech therapist – has been open for three years.
“There’s such a shortage,” Sakahara said. “When (schools) produce them, they go immediately out to the private because they get paid more, and some only want to work part-time, and we need full-time.”
The district thought it had found someone for that job this summer, he said, but the applicant was rejected after a reference review.
Until permanent teachers are found, long-term substitutes will be used.
“We continue looking all year long until we find somebody, even though we put a long-term sub in there,” Piceno said. “We prefer to have a credentialed teacher with a background in the subject matter.”
If a candidate’s application, with background, credentials and references looks good – in other words, if he or she looks good on paper, the district calls for an interview. After the initial interview, applicants visit the district and undergo an interview with a school principal and teachers.
Once a desirable candidate is found, the hiring process can take a matter of a day or two if current transcripts are available and the candidate is fingerprinted, Sakahara said. If things aren’t in order, both those items can get backlogged.
Although it might appear the district has been chasing its tail to get to full staff, Piceno said it’s par for the course for any school district.
“It’s not unusual, although we have something that a lot of districts don’t have, which is an expected increase in enrollment,” she said.
With more students coming in, GUSD gets more money from the state to hire teachers for added classes. The district is adding one kindergarten class this year due to higher enrollment and Sakahara expected a teacher would be hired for that position Thursday evening.
“We won’t really know what the increase is until next week (when school starts), when we see who shows up,” Piceno said.
Many other districts nearby have declining enrollment, which makes handling budget cuts even more difficult and forced the closure of some schools this spring.
One thing that is speeding up the recruiting process and feeding the district applicants is the education job Web site, www.EdJoin.org.
One day after posting an elementary level teaching job on the site, GUSD received seven applications, Piceno said.
“It’s great, it’s really shortened up that whole recruitment process: Back in the old days, we would put out ads or fliers – now it’s instantaneous,” she said. “(It) has really changed the way that we do business.”
