Maya McFadden File Photo
Superintendent Madeline Negrón.
With two weeks to go before the start of the school year, New Haven’s public school district has 84 classroom teacher positions still open — a vacancy number that is down from 106 earlier this week.
On Thursday morning, New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) spokesperson Justin Harmon told the Independent via email that the district has 84 vacancies among classroom teacher spots.
Harmon’s update followed a vacancy-focused presentation that Supt. Madeline Negrón gave on Monday at her third Board of Education meeting, a month into her new role as the district’s leader.
The regular biweekly Board meeting was hosted at Barack Obama School on Farnham Avenue and on Zoom. Attending the meeting in person were Board members Matt Wilcox, John Carlos Serana Musser, Justin Elicker, Yesenia Rivera, Darnell Goldson, and OrLando Yarborough III. Attending on Zoom were members Edward Joyner and Abie Benitez.
Similar to other school districts around the nation, Negrón said during the meeting, NHPS continues to deal with staffing shortages. The district’s vacancy numbers change daily as the human resources department has recently begun tracking departures and new arrivals in real time.
As of Monday, the district had 256 vacancies.
Of that number, two of the vacancies are for administrators (Hillhouse principal and assistant principal at East Rock School), 106 are for classroom teachers, 37 are for non-classroom teachers, 52 are for assistant teachers and paraprofessionals, and 59 are for non-instructional staffers.
“I do want to celebrate the fact that that number [of classroom teacher vacancies] would have been 166. It is 106 because 60 elementary-level vacancies were filled by teachers from our ‘grow our own’ approach to recruitment that we do in partnership with Southern Connecticut State University,” Negrón said. As Harmon pointed out on Thursday, that 106 vacancy number is now down to 84.
At Monday’s meeting the Board approved a vote allowing Negrón to make school staff hires without having to wait two weeks for Board approval until the Board’s next meeting scheduled to happen three days before the start of the school year.
Those 60 elementary teachers began as non-certified employees until they were provided with financial support from NHPS ESSER funds to work toward their teaching certification, which began two years ago. They worked during that time under a Durational Shortage Area Permit (DSAP), receiving teacher salaries.
The vacancy numbers have increased from a reported 193 vacancies in March. Last September the district reported having 70 – 80 teacher vacancies compared to the 106 vacancies reported Monday as the start of the school year approaches.
Negrón added that the district is taking proactive measures like preparing for the 12 educators who will take an extended leave at the start of the year. Those educators’ classrooms are being filled with degree-holding long term substitute teachers, Negrón said.
The district’s priority shortage areas remain in math, science, and special education. These roles have proven to be the hardest to fill areas, as they have represented more than half of the vacancy numbers in recent years.
In grade 7 – 12 math, there are 17 vacancies, in 7 – 12 science, there are 10 vacancies; and in special education, there are 19 vacancies.
The schools with the most vacancies as of Monday are Betsy Ross, Clemente, ESUMS, Co-op, Hillhouse, and Wexler Grant.
At Monday’s meeting, Negrón debuted a new recruitment video in line with the district’s theme of “we are all recruiters.”
The video features students and educators discussing why they enjoy NHPS. The district team is currently doing final edits to the promotional video before releasing it to the public.
The district’s recruitment efforts also include expanding three options offering teachers with career pathways including a ParaPro Prep for New Haven community members, bachelors partners, and certification partners programs.
Currently 20 city residents have spent this summer in the ParaPro Prep program to begin as a district paraprofessional.
Recently the district has been collecting applicant data to improve its recruitment strategies and use its resources accordingly, Negron said. Through this it’s learned that job fairs make up only 1 percent of applicant referrals while current employee referrals make up 28 percent.
Negrón said recruitment is also being focused beyond Connecticut in places like Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Texas, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities to recruit a diverse staff.
Watch the full meeting above.
In response to the presentation, Board members Darnell Goldson and Matt Wilcox suggested the district connect with resources like the teacher and paraprofessional unions to gather data on why employees are leaving and how this year’s numbers compare to the past.
This nothing new. We start the year in a teacher deficit and end the year in a teacher deficit. I'm sure there will be additional resignations prior to school starting and during the school year. Let's see how the recruiting efforts go. We can recruit all we want, but we have to have a plan to keep the teachers.