GILROY—Teacher union warnings that a reputation for low pay would scare away potential recruits are not holding up in Gilroy, where a modest pay hike has led to scores of new teacher hires and only a handful of open slots left for the coming year.
“We clearly have made a big difference and I believe that (hike) was beneficial,” Gilroy Unified School District Superintendent Debbie Flores said, citing a three-year, 13 percent pay increase negotiated earlier this year.
“We may not be in the middle (in pay, compared with other districts in Santa Clara County), but we’re certainly not on the bottom anymore,” she said.
At the Gilroy Teachers Association, union president Vincent Oberst complimented the district for moving GUSD up the county’s teacher salary list.
“I give them a lot of credit,” he said. “This (school) board has changed members and the salaries are going in the right direction.”
The situation, however, remains bad when it comes to benefits, Oberst said, “through no fault of the district.”
He said Kaiser Permanente raised health insurance premiums for the Gilroy plan, part of a cycle that began when increased premiums forced some teachers to leave the district’s Kaiser-insured pool, which in turn sent premiums up further.
He said much of the district’s recruitment happened before Kaiser announced the increased premiums, but he credited the district with negotiating for less of a hike than was initially announced.
Flores called the nearly 60 new hires “the best quality candidates I have seen in eight years. People want to work here,” she said.
In all, seven slots remain to be filled to reach a full contingent of 590 teachers employed in Gilroy’s public school classrooms from kindergarten to 12th grade.
In a typical year, the district loses 50 to 60 teachers, an average of 8 to 10 percent turnover, for a variety of reasons. This past school year ended with 68 teacher vacancies in the 11,840-student district. GUSD lost 12 teachers to retirement and 55 more for other reasons, according to Assistant Superintendent Stephanie Totter.
Flores said recruitment efforts began in March and reached out to teacher job fairs as far away as Fresno.
The biggest challenge, she said, is recruiting to fill the district’s roster of 113 special education teachers.
To help, GUSD recruiters reached out to colleges that teach special education.
With a few of those positions still open, Flores said she is confident all positions will be filled before school starts again.
