Hollister
– After losing 28 teachers, San Benito High School has filled
all but four of the vacated positions.
Hollister – After losing 28 teachers, San Benito High School has filled all but four of the vacated positions.
Despite a relatively high number of vacancies, high school administrators are encouraged they’ve hired nearly all the needed teachers. The school’s human resources department is hoping to hire the last four before the end of the week so the teachers can be trained for the first day of school August 20.
“The recruiting is the difficult piece – and getting them to stay,” Human Resources Director Mike Potmesil said.
The school is still in need of a dance teacher, a business teacher, a Spanish teacher and one part-time position to fill roles vacated at the end of last school year, Potmesil said.
Potmesil said he was pleased officials filled the special education, mathematics and science vacancies. Those roles are typically the most difficult to replace, he said.
To fill the special education positions, the school hired some teachers without full credentials, said Director of Student Services Karen Schroder.
Special education teachers need credentials both in the subject area they teach and in special education, too. The need for multiple credentials has created a shortage of special education teachers statewide, Schroder said.
“We have to be creative because it’s nearly impossible to get a staff of fully-credentialed special ed. teachers,” Schroder said.
Despite some of the new staff not being fully credentialed, Schroder expressed confidence officials will make beneficial additions to the school. She’s hopeful those teachers will like the school enough to stay and pursue their other credentials.
The high school will have a total of 28 new teachers this year. That turnover number is fairly high, even for a school of San Benito’s size, Potmesil said.
This high turnover has caused concern among administrators and teachers alike.
The high school teachers’ union president, Clete Bradford, said it’s worrying to see high numbers of new teachers leaving each year.
“We do seem to have a big turnover of teachers. We usually lose over 20 a year,” Bradford said. “A lot of new teachers leave, and it’s a concern.”
To retain their new teachers, the high school offers new teacher-support classes, which all the new teachers will attend next week.
It helps prepare the teachers for the school’s culture and acclimate them to the environment, Potmesil said.
“We expect them to jump high, but we say, ‘Here’s the springboard to get you going,'” Potmesil said. “If you expect them to be good, you have to give them support.”
