Christopher Peak Photo
Lisa Mack and Carol Birks answer questions at special meeting.
Even after last year’s budget cuts slashed the teaching force, more teachers fled to other school districts this year, leaving the district’s human resources office scrambling to catch up.
Within the last six months, 174 teachers (out of approximately 1,900 district-wide) have sent in resignation or retirement letters. That has meant that the school district is short-staffed by dozens of full-time employees, leaving coaches and substitutes to cover all the classrooms.
Administrators said, at a special Board of Education meeting held Tuesday evening at the district’s Meadow Street headquarters, that they have 32 vacancies.
The number of teachers who resigned for another job is slightly larger this school year, growing from 121 in 2018 to 156 in 2019.
But there’s one big difference. Last year, the end of the federal Teacher Incentive Fund grant meant that the district couldn’t afford to keep all its faculty. Administrative interns were sent back to classrooms, bumping other teachers in what led to a massive reassignment. In the late summer, teachers found out that if they didn’t start looking for jobs elsewhere, they might be laid off, as 20 counselors, librarians and teachers eventually were.
Those belt-tightening measures meant that, for every five teachers that the district lost, it hired back only three new teachers.
That’s not the case this year, as the district is trying to replace most of the teachers who have departed. Within roughly the same six-month period, it has already hired almost as many teachers, and is still short.
Since February, the district has hired 179 teachers, 55 of whom don’t have their certification yet.
Overall, this year’s hires have been doing the job longer, boasting about 4.8 years experience at the front of the classroom on average, about a year-and-a-half more than last year’s hires.
They have slightly fewer advanced degrees. Only 9.1 percent have gone beyond their master’s, compared to 27.7 percent last year who’d earned a six-year certificate or a doctorate.
At this week’s Board of Ed meeting, district human resources chief Lisa Mack said that the 32 vacancies are primarily in hard-to-fill positions, in particular for 10 teachers in special education, seven in math and four in bilingual education. Those numbers are still moving, she added.
“That number can fluctuate up or down, as we fill vacancies,” Mack said. “We have realigned schedules to make sure all classes are covered, as well as using some of our veteran substitutes on a short-term basis.”
Typhanie Jackson, the district’s student services director who oversees special education, added that some retirees have come back to help with those staffing shortages.
Superintendent Carol Birks, meanwhile, has sought to downplay the problem. At a recent Board of Ed meeting, she sent out a report with misleading numbers, suggesting that this year actually has the highest retention rates on record.
While she was on vacation, Keisha Redd-Hannans, an assistant superintendent, read off numbers that said only 269 full-time employees had left this “academic year,” compared to a high of 294 in 2016.
But her stats stopped on June 30, long before the most teachers send in their mid-summer resignations. She didn’t make any distinction between full-time employees, instead grouping together chefs, guards, aides, teachers and principals. And she didn’t say how many people the district employed each year for an accurate retention rate.
Dave Cicarella.
“It is a large number, there’s no question about that,” said Dave Cicarella, the teacher’s union president.
Cicarella said that so many educators — especially those in the mid-range of seniority — are calling it quits to work in suburban school districts, where they can be paid up to $15,000 more for an easier teaching assignment or even take a promotion to an assistant principal position.
“These people are in their 30s; their kids are getting older. They don’t necessarily want to go, but they get aggressively recruited,” he said. “New Haven teachers are highly sought after. They know it’s an urban district, and that if you can teach here, you can teach anywhere.”
Cicarella added that, while it’s not the most significant factor, recurring budget deficits are also making a few teachers uneasy.
“We used to have plenty of state and federal money to keep us going; now, I’m not so sure,” he said. Before, the job might have been challenging, but “at least it was secure; that’s not the case anymore.”
Without increased funding that would allow New Haven to pay its teachers more, what can be done to convince educators to stay? Cicarella said that the district can do more to make its teachers feel supported.
“Sometimes, too many of them feel, ‘I’m in this by myself.’ That’s not the intention, but they don’t feel completely supported,” he said. “Everyone knows resources are limited, but we really have to be willing to take a hard look at what we’ve done up to this point and how we can do it better, to help teachers be more successful and truly be supported so they want to stay.”
I would like to step back from the ongoing District craziness and thank Christopher Peak for his education reporting in the NHI. The chaos has kept him very busy and he keeps writing story after story. Mr. Peak is a big reason why the public is informed on the issues in the District. He has my vote for New Havener of the Year. Thank you, Chris Peak, for your work.