GILROY
– Gilroy Unified School District is reporting a dramatic
increase in the quantity and quality of applicants vying for
teaching jobs next school year, an unintentional but positive
consequence of the state’s massive revenue shortfall.
GILROY – Gilroy Unified School District is reporting a dramatic increase in the quantity and quality of applicants vying for teaching jobs next school year, an unintentional but positive consequence of the state’s massive revenue shortfall.
GUSD Recruiter Gene Sakahara said a recent online job posting to fill elementary and middle school teaching positions garnered a response from 200 teachers. Another 100 or so applicants responded via regular mail.
Sakahara said many of the applicants were laid off by school districts reeling from budget cuts designed to offset the millions of dollars in state revenue losses.
“My files are full,” GUSD Recruiter Gene Sakahara quipped Monday, before beginning the first round of interviews to fill the principal’s position at Antonio Del Buono Elementary School.
The California Teachers Association estimates that education cuts triggered 30,000 layoff notices statewidefor temporary and full-time teachers next school year. For GUSD, which has made the recruitment and retention of qualified teachers a district priority, the layoffs have led to a vast increase in the number of applicants vying for “garlic town” teaching posts.
“It’s easily twice as many as last year,” said Sakahara, a longtime GUSD administrator.
The ADB principal’s job, incidentally, also garnered a heavy response. Sakahara said 40 candidates, mostly from California, have applied for the position which opens this summer when current principal Pat Midtgaard retires.
The lot of teachers applying for open positions in GUSD likely increased over the weekend when the Santa Clara County Office of Education held a teacher recruitment fair. Over 1,000 applicants converged on participating districts, Sakahara said.
“We were swamped all day,” Sakahara said.”We had so many applicants we just focused on our need to fill math, science and special (education) positions.”
Some believe the increase in the teaching pool is not only the result of the budget crisis. Linda Piceno, GUSD’s assistant superintendent of human resources, says there are a lot of newly credentialed teachers seeking work.
“It can’t be just the budget shortfall,” Piceno said. “It may be we’re finally seeing the byproduct of having a teacher shortage in California. Over the last few years a lot of students went into education expecting to find jobs.”
Besides the sheer quantity of applicants, GUSD administrators are encouraged even more by the quality of the applicants they are seeing.
Because so many teachers have been laid off around the state, GUSD is interviewing only teachers who have credentials. Currently, 88 percent of GUSD teachers are considered fully credentialed. The other 12 percent carry emergency credentials or participate in an internship program.
“It looks like nearly all of our teachers are going to be fully qualified next year,” Superintendent Edwin Diaz said. “This is clearly an opportunity for the district.”
Diaz says given the budget crisis, the challenge is no longer finding qualified applicants, it is funding the positions for them.
“That’s the obstacle,” Diaz said. “We’re going through the hiring process based on assumptions about the state budget” which might not be finalized until October.
Sakahara said there are roughly 15 teaching positions GUSD must fill for next year, based on teachers who have said they are not returning for one reason or another.
“That could increase because we’ve heard of some people who are retiring but haven’t formally told us yet,” Sakahara said.
Last year, GUSD hired 79 teachers.
GUSD could have a clearer picture of how many positions it will have open by the end of May. Gov. Gray Davis is expected to announce revisions to the 2003-04 state budget midweek. And lawmakers could pass a bill that would allow schools to place slightly more than 20 children in kindergarten through third-grade classrooms.
“We need an indication from the state if they’re going to offer flexibility in class-size reduction,” Piceno said.
GUSD participates in a program that provides money to keep class-size ratios at 20 students per teacher in kindergarten through third grade. Districts have been lobbying the state to continue spending the same amount of money on that program while allowing districts to increase some classrooms to a 22 to 1 student to teachers ratio, as long as a schoolwide or districtwide average remains at 20 to 1.
Piceno said around 11 teaching positions could be cut if flexibility is allowed. If class sizes are increased, it could result in a savings of roughly half a million dollars, Piceno said.
Piceno said hiring should begin in June. Teachers are usually hired by April or May most years.
