Philadelphia School Superintendent William Hite said he was “thrilled” to announce the district had filled 99 percent of its teaching vacancies by last week, but the local teachers union did not share his enthusiasm.
While the new hires, including a 20-year Army veteran, will offer relief to teachers who were stretched thin and forced to cover for missing colleagues for months at a time, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers was critical of the district’s hiring process.
The union is upset veteran teachers who had been laid off did not get jobs before the new recruits.
“It’s a simple issue of fundamental fairness and recognizing that those who have given service to the district deserve to be treated with dignity and respect,” PFT President Jerry Jordan told Newsworks.org.
According to published reports, 78 jobless veteran teachers are labeled “forced transfers,” which means they were laid off from their respective schools. Some lost their jobs because their positions were eliminated. The PFT has said those teachers are usually the first to be hired back, but as the district scrambled to meet lofty hiring goals, principals selected newer teachers instead.
“For the first time ever, the principals and the site selection committees were able to consider external candidates at the same time they considered all internal transfers,” Hite said at a press conference last week.
The union said many of its jobless teachers never got an interview and argues the district violated work rules that are part of the union contract, which expired three years ago.
The sides have not come to an agreement on a new contract after the Philadelphia School Reform Commission attempted to terminate the pact two years ago when the union did not agree to contribute more to health care benefits to help close a budget gap. Teachers continue to work under the expired contract.
Last week, the district announced it filled 1,940 jobs, which included 531 new teachers.
The jobs were filled through a massive hiring blitz conducted by the SDP Office of Talent over the last last three months that included job fairs, information sessions and an advertising campaign designed to attract new candidates to the district.
“Last year there were too many vacancies in our schools,” Hite said. “We recognized the problem. We took action with an aggressive recruitment and hiring strategy. We made a commitment to fully staff all of our schools by the start of the school year, and we plan to meet our goal.”
Approximately 45 teaching vacancies remain, which the district hopes to fill by the start of the school year. There are reportedly more than 70 veteran teachers the union wants the district to hire back.
But while the union insists the district hire back unemployed teachers, others who could be in the classroom are instead working for the union.
As part of its contract with the district, the union can take up to 63 teachers out of the classroom each year to work full-time for the PFT. During the 2015-16 school year, the PFT had 16 “ghost teachers” earning more than $1.5 million to serve as information officers and political organizers.
In November of last year, Philadelphia schools were short more than 130 full-time teachers. The problem was compounded by the district’s failure to fill daily vacancies with substitute teachers, a task outsourced to a staffing firm, Source4Teachers, which never filled more than 50 percent of teacher absences throughout the school year.
Source4Teachers was replaced by another firm, Kelly Educational Staffing.
The recent hiring binge is expected to provide some stability in the classroom and also fix what had been a costly burden on the district.
A study in April found the district’s high number of teacher vacancies was costing it up to $3 million a year, not to mention the difficulties it imposed on students who lacked a constant presence at the front of the classroom.
“This problem goes back several years, and we’re thrilled to be at 99 percent,” Hite said.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of education majors has been on the decline since 2011. The Washington Post found more than half of all teachers are stressed out and teacher satisfaction is plummeting.
No comments:
Post a Comment