CCSD hopes to recruit 6,000 applicants for new teaching jobs
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The Clark County School District hopes to recruit thousands of applicants by the end of the summer to fill roughly 1,700 new teaching positions for the next school year. Video by ktnv.com
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Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) -- Hundreds of new teaching positions in Clark County could be filled both locally and nationally.
The Clark County School District announced plans this week to hire roughly 1,700 new teachers by the 2013-2014 school year, which includes about 700 new positions, said district spokesman Michael Rodriguez. Roughly 1,000 positions are expected to become vacant through attrition, he said.
The district would like to have a pool of about 6,000 applicants by Aug. 31, Rodriguez said. So where will the candidates come from and which schools will they work in?
For starters, the district hopes to recruit many candidates online through a revamped human resources website, Rodriguez said. The national search will likely focus on states like Arizona, as well as California and Utah, where teachers were recently laid off and would have a shorter move to Nevada compared to states that are farther away, Rodriguez said. Local candidates are also encouraged to apply, he said.
"If we get more teachers, that's certainly going to be much more conducive to a better work environment for the teachers and better learning situation for the kids," said Jerre Moore, principal at Doris Hancock Elementary.
The additional teachers are expected to help reduce congested classrooms by an average of two students, the district said. At Doris Hancock, the school said it has enrolled 54 new students since the start of the school year including seven in the last week. Overall, the district expects to add about 1,500 new students by the next school year.
"The kids keep coming and the class sizes keep increasing," said Moore.
Local recruits could come from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which graduates about 200 teachers each year. Randall Boone, chair of the department of teaching and learning, said many of his students are from the area and want to stay in the valley.
"Our folks like to stay here," said Boone. "We're a local campus."
Teach for America's Las Vegas office said it also hopes to fill some of the open positions, but won't know an exact number until the end of March, said executive director Victor Wakefield.
The district said it will use roughly $23 million in savings from a recent arbitration ruling to pay for the positions.
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