School Districts looking to fill teacher positions

GREENVILLE, S.C. (FOX Carolina) -There is a teacher shortage across the nation, and the Palmetto state isn’t exempt.

Several districts across the upstate are looking to fill multiple teaching positions some are turning to incentives for new hires monetary motivations to keep current employees.

Greenwood Superintendent for District 50, said “We need teachers and if were going to educate our communities and become a better society in the state of South Carolina, we need to educate all of our kids”.

He said they’re doing all they can to retain and recruit teachers. Including raising teacher pay this year by 5 percent.

“We’ve had signing bonuses, flex time to cover other contract days, and increased summer pay to $50 per hour” he said. “We had a Covid incentive of $500, we paid Covid leave for 2 years for up to 10 days, we have a half off membership at the YMCA.”

The “Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement” in South Carolina, or CERRA, said nearly 7,000 teachers didn’t return to work for the 2021/2022 school year. About 2,300 of those teachers were in the industry for less than five years.

Jimmy Armstrong, the principal of Greer Middle College Charter High School, said the pandemic plays a major role in teacher burnout, and exhaustion. He said online learning also the blurred lines for proper classroom rules and teacher respect.

“For the first time this last school year, everybody came back or most everybody, and that was students and teachers. A lot were online or they were off again, on again, off again, on again”.

In Greenwood district 50, the superintendent tells me they have a mentor program that partners with new or first time teachers with veteran teachers so they can learn how to manage a classroom and set health boundaries with students. Hopefully cutting down on exhaustion and teacher burnout.

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