CCSD teacher recruitment kicks into overdrive
Start next school year with a permanent teacher in every classroom.
That’s the “fairly impossible goal” of Staci Vesneske, chief human resources officer for the Clark County School District, which began the school year 350 teachers short.
Substitute teachers were brought in, and more than 300 have had to remain in place.
Finding 1,000 to 3,000 qualified teachers every summer — as the district has needed to do over the past decade — has been easier said and never done in recent years.
In fact, starting 2012-13 with 350 unfilled positions is the district’s best record of late. It began the five previous school years with 406 to 692 teacher vacancies, Vesneske said.
But this summer, her staff needs to hire 2,000 teachers because of a flood of retirements and plans to restore 700 positions that had been eliminated.
That means the district needs to hire more teachers than in any summer since 2007, before the economic downturn stalled decades of student enrollment increases.
“It’s all hands on deck,” Vesneske said, adding that her staff is working weekends and nights to meet the goal.
The reason the district is always short on teachers is simple. It can’t get enough applicants.
For years, the district has been sending recruiters to colleges all over the country and even around the world to find qualified teacher candidates. Clark County hires 70 percent of applicants on average, which is just about everyone who passes candidate screening.
The district isn’t picking its teachers so much as teachers picking the district.
Vesneske’s crew is trying to reverse that by generating enough applicants so the district has a choice, expanding the pool so that about a third of job-seekers end up as new hires.
To do that, they will need to persuade 6,000 teachers to apply to “Teach Las Vegas,” as one of the district’s hiring mantras goes.
The district’s high mark was 4,176 applicants in 2005 when times were better and teacher salaries weren’t stagnant.
New approach to recruiting
The door to recruitment director Brenda Nielsen’s office is covered in a laminated drawing of an apple tree that would suit a teacher’s classroom. Some apples have been colored in red — representing 1,348 applications that have been received and approved — but many apples are just outlines waiting for the Magic Marker.
“We’ve already surpassed the number of applications received last year, and it’s early April,” Vesneske said. “That’s pretty darn good.”
But she is not sending recruiters to colleges anymore. Things are being done differently this year because of budget issues. It usually costs $6,000 to $8,000 to send two recruiters to a college, Vesneske said.
“It costs a lot of money,” she said. “Frankly, we don’t have it.”
The cash-strapped district, fifth-largest in the nation with more than 17,000 teachers and 311,000 students, has asked employees to take pay freezes the past two years and has made other changes to trim costs.
Recruiters are now reaching out through the Internet by posting on college websites, teaching job sites and even spreading the word on Facebook, Twitter and Craigslist.
“We’re on 300 different websites and always adding to our Internet presence,” Vesneske said.
But the key is to personally connect with teachers without recruiting face to face, giving them a reason to not just submit an informal interest letter, but an application too.
A call from the district follows each interest form, and the district has received about 5,000 interest forms, said Charity Varnado, executive director of licensed personnel services.
“We have people just making those calls,” like Raquel Castaneda, Vesneske added.
Castaneda can’t recall how many calls she has made, just saying, “How many calls? Oh, my God.”
Varnado is shooting for 15,000 interest forms, realizing only a third of those teachers usually apply.
‘We’re the matchmakers’
Joann Luttrell knows that just because a teacher applies for the job doesn’t mean he or she will take it.
She is surrounded by a fort of files rising from her desk and floor.
“I live in files,” the district’s director of staffing said.
Each file is for a teacher who survived the gantlet of background, license and reference checks. They are cleared for hire.
On one morning she called 30 to 40 teachers; less than half accepted the jobs offered.
The reason for “no” is usually the same. This early, she can’t guarantee them a job at a specific school. They could be placed anywhere.
Placing them is also Luttrell’s job.
“We’re the matchmakers,” said Luttrell, who fits the skills of new teachers with the needs of schools.
Las Vegas can also be a hard sell for other reasons.
The starting salary is $35,083, lower than many other districts, Vesneske said.
She is trying to sell the city and “premier retirement system.” But the district is usually hiring teachers straight out of college who — being so young — aren’t focused on planning for retirement. They just look at their paycheck.
“Money is a motivation. There is no doubt about it,” said Vesneske, who emphasizes Las Vegas’ low cost of living compared with other large districts in Chicago, Miami and New York. “Your take-home is so much higher.”
Contact reporter Trevon Milliard at
tmilliard@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279.
