Raises sweeten teaching offers

The school district can make a firm, higher bid for starting teachers and has fewer vacancies to fill, giving it a recruiting edge.

By ROBERT KING

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 19, 2000

BROOKSVILLE -- For the past two years, Hernando County school principals and district recruiters have scoured what seemed like the ends of the earth to fill teaching vacancies.

College campuses across the Midwest. Recruiting conferences in the Gulf Coast states. Phone contacts across the country.

Still, schools have opened the past two Augusts without a full complement of teachers. Long-term substitutes, who have four-year college degrees but often not in the subject area they must teach, filled in for months.

Last year, five long-term subs taught the entire year, sometimes because their principals were satisfied with their work and called off the headhunting, sometimes because there simply was nobody else to take over.

Another summer, and another recruiting season, has arrived. But this year, there is a chance that things will be less desperate. Fewer teachers are retiring. Fewer have resigned. And fewer are falling into the category of the "non-reappointed," people not invited back.

The result is that the school district currently lists 42 teaching vacancies. Last year at this point in the summer, there were 63.

"It looks much better than it's been," said Edd Poore, the district's director of human resources.

School officials also seem more confident about their hiring situation because of the new armor they carry into the recruiting wars.

First and foremost, they can offer prospective teachers a firm salary figure when making a sales pitch -- all thanks to one of the earliest teacher contract settlements in memory. That could give Hernando a slight edge, Poore said, if the county is competing for a teacher whose other suitors are districts that still do not have a contract.

The new contract includes a starting salary of $25,500 for first-year teachers with a bachelor's degree. That is $1,450 above last year's base, one of the biggest one-year jumps the district has made.

Still, that salary is well behind counties such as Pasco, Pinellas and Hillsborough, which has set its starting pay this year at $30,000. But Hernando officials contend that their salaries get more competitive as teachers gain more experience, and the overall picture has improved.

"In terms of our ability to be competitive, I'm not too discouraged," said Superintendent John Sanders.

Then there is the $400,000 war chest for recruiting that the school district has. The state Legislature gave each district money for recruiting, so any advantage Hernando might have in-state likely would be minimal. But the cash could come in handy when trying to lure teachers from other states.

The money can only be used to hire or retain teachers in "critical" shortage areas such as special education, math, science and foreign languages. But it can be spent on anything from moving expenses to signing bonuses as high as $1,200 per teacher, Poore said.

About 20 of the 43 existing vacancies fall in those critical shortage areas.

By summer's end, Poore estimates, the school district will need to have hired upward of 90 teachers. That includes the current vacancies, others likely to pop up during the summer and spots the district will add to cover its growing enrollment.

Still, the early signs seem to point to a good year.

"I've gotten more (applicant) calls this year than I did last year," said Powell Middle School principal Cy Wingrove, who has five openings. "It's been better than I anticipated."

District officials continue to trek to teacher recruiting events such as the Great Florida Teach-In, which began Sunday in Orlando. But they are also taking their recruiting efforts to the Internet.

Hernando is one of about 45 Florida school districts that have Web site links to the home page of Florida REAP, the Regional Education Applicant & Placement Program.

Teachers around the country who search the site (http://www.flreap.net) can get information about the Hernando schools, the latest vacancy information and ways to contact the district.

Sanders said he thinks Hernando has much to offer prospective teachers if they are willing to look at the whole package: salaries, benefits, cost of living, classroom sizes (which he says are smaller than some higher-paying, urban districts) and overall quality of life.

"It's a wonderful place to work," Sanders said. "I think we're in pretty good shape."

Starting salaries

		1999-00		2000-01
Hillsborough		$27,587		$30,000
Pinellas		$27,000		$28,800
Pasco		$26,300		*
Hernando		$24,050		$25,500
Citrus		$24,000		$25,500

*Pasco's 2000-01 contract is still being negotiated

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