School Board member Jimmy Lodato asked the district’s Ray Pinder how the district can improve teacher retention.
Pinder stated that exit interviews are conducted on instructional personnel and now non-instructional personnel. He says that there were 32 retirements out of 148 instructional resignations over the past year.
He says out of the 116 who weren’t retiring, “There were two reasons that jumped out: personal family reasons (33) and relocation (26).”
Pinder says there have been between 40 and 50 open instructional positions throughout the year as well as a similar number of open support positions.
With the end of the school year, principals will begin the hiring process to prepare for the upcoming school year. He noted the para-to-pro program the district has developed where paraprofessionals are trained to be teachers through university partnerships.
He remarked that they are searching for ways to streamline incoming alt-certified teachers (those coming in with Bachelor’s degrees) as the first few years they are required to take college courses for certain DOE requirements which can be challenging.
“We can’t change what DOE requires, but we can try to streamline the process.”
