GREENSBORO, N.C. — Thursday afternoon, Guilford County School leaders took steps to fill more than 80 open teaching positions.
The district held a hiring event at the Greensboro Coliseum.
In addition to the open teaching positions, GCS also in needs to fill open positions for classified employees like HVAC technicians, and school psychologists.
This week, Dr. Whitney Oakley laid out her budget proposal which included pay raises for those classified employees who, right now, do not get a pay raise until year 15.
Dr. Oakley also asked for an increase in teacher supplements.
These are additional funds school districts include as part of their state-funded teacher salaries and they vary from district to district.
Dr. Oakley wants to raise those supplements which will in turn increase teacher salaries.
She says this will allow the district to attract and more importantly retain teachers who right now will only get one pay raise, from the state, after 15 years of experience in the classroom.
That is where Dr. Oakley says programs centered around career advancement need to be focused.
To not only keep those with experience but to give them other earned advancement opportunities.
"Not every teacher wants to be an assistant principal or a principal, so how can we build career paths for teachers where we can continue to expand that?" said Dr. Oakley. "How can we think about using dollars to pay teachers to do things like tutoring after hours so they don’t have to take a second job and just thinking about how we can keep people here, we want them to stay."
Dr. Oakley says teacher pay is not the only factor contributing to a shortage of classroom teachers.
Providing those advancement opportunities to become lead teachers, mentor teachers or instructional coaches are some ways they hope to retain experienced teachers.
However, Dr. Oakley says pay remains a top strategy for GCS.
Keep in mind, before any of those raises will take effect – Guilford County Commissioners will need to approve Dr. Oakley’s proposal.
The school district's hurdle, GCS already makes up nearly 50% of the entire county’s budget, before any of those millions of additional dollars in pay increases are granted.