LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Around the same time last year, the Clark County School District had 1,034 classroom vacancies posted on its talent acquisition website.
Thursday, it reported only 280 such vacancies.
“I’m excited about the start of the school year,” said Clark County Education Association President, Marie Neisess. “I like where we’re at.”
As head of the largest teachers’ union in Nevada, she has been an outspoken critic of CCSD for years. She says she’s satisfied with Thursday’s news that classroom vacancies have fallen by 73%.
“We’re excited to see those numbers be so low,” she said. “We think the contract win that we had during the ’23 session – that was a draw for many of our educators. We have a competitive salary schedule.”
Part of the effort to get more licensed educators in the classroom is a pipeline program called the Public Education Foundation.
“I hadn’t gone to school for 32 years,” PEF graduate Sabine Lamay said at M Resort and Casino, where CCSD hosted its annual teacher welcome breakfast. “I never had an associate degree. I had six credits to my name.”
Lamay took advantage of the program when it started up a few years ago.
“To that point, there had not been a career ladder for those folks to really progress into a position that would ultimately double their salaries,” said Grant Hanevold, chief education officer for the Public Education Foundation.
He noting that aspiring teachers had difficulty earning the credits they needed.
“They just have a knack for being a great teacher, but there had never been really an opportunity for them to say, ‘How can I do this while continuing to earn a paycheck, while continuing to maintain my benefits?’” he said.
Lamay graduated in December with a bachelor’s degree in special education after spending years helping out in smaller roles in those classrooms. It’s an area where CCSD has been short for a long time.
“I’ve had six teachers in nine years in just that program alone, so I knew there’s a need for teachers, and everyone is not able to do that,” she said.
Now, Lamay is part of the solution to the main goal of filling classrooms with qualified teachers.
“At the end of the day, we want to make sure that there’s a licensed educator in front of all of our students,” Neisess said.
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