Kentucky's largest school district is addressing the teacher shortage with some new incentives to recruit and retain teachers.
Kentucky Additions Kelsey Stark sat down with the head of h.r.
For jefferson county public schools to find out how.
Well jefferson county public schools currently have more than 300 teacher positions open.
Could be even more next year as teachers continue to retire.
Aimee Green-Webb is the human resources chief for cps.
Thank you so much for being here.
To talk about some ways jcpenney is trying to recruit and retain new teachers.
You all are trying to get a little creative here and making some new partnerships.
We are.
We are.
There are several ways that we go about recruitment.
One of our flagship programs at this time is our Louisville Teacher residency program.
We are very excited to be in our third year of LCR, and that means we've had folks in classrooms learning from mentor teachers for almost three years now.
That first group went through a full year of learning and going to University of Louisville, obtaining a master's degree and finishing with certification.
So two previous cohorts are in their own classrooms now.
Another third cohort is in learning, and we will welcome the next cohort this coming summer.
So very excited about the growth of LCR.
And so that's where they are getting experience right now.
And then they, they commit to teaching.
JCP They do.
They do.
In exchange for really giving them a position while they are providing a service in the classroom assisting, they are learning how to be teachers at the same time taking what they're learning in the classroom, at the university and putting that into practice and then giving back and serving the district for a period of time.
And at this point we are seeing great retention numbers in the nineties as far as retaining all of our previous cohorts and expect for them to have really long careers with us as we continue to develop them into positions of teacher leadership and other growth.
So that's recruiting teachers and retaining teachers.
What are some other ways you all are trying to keep the teachers that you have in the district?
Right?
We've really made a huge effort lately with really listening in to that teacher voice.
We started looking at our schools that were losing teachers the most, the high attrition rate schools, and we asked the teachers about what was important to them at that school.
You know, instructional leadership wise and other working conditions issues, really listening to what they have to say, working with the principal to make a plan, an action plan to address areas of concern and helping the teachers to see that progress is being made on what's important to them.
We've done that with an initial set of schools.
We grew that to 44 schools last year and this year we are doing that for the entire school district.
We really do value the teacher voice.
They are really important to the district as they impact our students on a daily basis.
And that, we believe, is a difference maker as far as retaining teachers.
Sure.
And so what are some of the things you're hearing?
Why are we here?
How did we get here in this crisis of needing teachers?
Right.
Well, it's twofold.
Certainly here lately, things have been different coming out of the pandemic, going through the pandemic, coming out of it.
Everyone has undergone a lot of additional stress, additional trauma.
Our students have different social experiences while they were at home and coming back, not having the same educational experience.
That is added a lot in addition to having fewer teachers at our schools.
And so you have teachers who are filling in, giving up their planning periods.
That's adding more and more stress.
So there is a sense of burnout and heavy workload that's contributing to some of that.
The Jefferson County Public School Board just did approve a 5% raise for teachers already.
That's ahead of schedule for next year.