Gilroy
– The school district hired fewer new teachers for this school
year, and the majority of those joining Gilroy schools are fully
credentialed.
By Lori Stuenkel
Gilroy – The school district hired fewer new teachers for this school year, and the majority of those joining Gilroy schools are fully credentialed.
Of the 52 new certificated employees – those who hold teaching credentials – hired by Gilroy Unified School District for the 2004-05 school year, 42 of those already have full credentials. By next school year, the state’s districts must have all credentialed and “highly qualified” teachers with subject-specific knowledge, to meet No Child Left Behind requirements.
Those 42 certificated staff members, who are mostly teachers though some work outside the classroom, represent 80 percent of GUSD’s new hires.
That is the same percentage of new employees hired with full credentials last year.
Five of the new hires in the district are already enrolled in a university teaching intern program, meaning they are already working toward their credentials. The other five are just getting into a credential program.
As the school year neared and positions remained open, it became more difficult to fill those slots with fully credentialed candidates, said Linda Piceno, assistant superintendent of human resources. Some became available as late as the week before school, with some teachers backing out of a contract or resigning.
“We have a couple positions that we have offered multiple times to candidates” with credentials who then turn it down, Piceno told trustees at last week’s school board meeting.
Slightly more than half of all district certificated staff are at the elementary schools, 15 percent are at middle schools, and about 25 percent are at the high school. But the newly hired staff was not distributed as evenly.
Only 38 percent of the new employees went to elementary schools, while 23 percent went to middle schools.
Gilroy High had 17 of the new hires, or about 33 percent, which is comparatively more than would be expected.
Piceno said the higher percentage of new hires at the high school could have to do with the number of teachers taking leaves of absence, as well as retirees. But she said the issue warrants a closer look because the district should not have to replace that many new high school teachers each year.
