Taking Drastic Steps for Teacher Recruitment

I recently attended the ASCD Empower18 national conference in Boston and was surprised to see in an overwhelming sea of booths in the vendor area that a brave rural New Hampshire school district from the western part of the state had set up shop in an effort to recruit educators to their schools. I stopped by to ask them how the process was working out for them and they were very optimistic. Already in the second day of the conference, they had collected a large number of applications, conducted mini interviews, and had already set up follow-up meetings with a number of prospective candidates. For this rural district, attracting educators from far away is their best strategy because their part of the state has seen a decline in population and an exodus of skilled workers leaving the region to seek employment in other parts of the state or country where wages are often higher and housing is more affordable and/or available.  This district, like many across the country, is struggling to fill teaching and support positions in their schools due to a variety of barriers such as these.

In my own New Hampshire school district in the more populated seacoast region, teacher turnover is often attributed to low wages. As a border town, New Hampshire teacher salaries are often far lower than they are in next door Massachusetts. While many in my community have seeked refuge in our suburban community that is an hour north of Boston for more affordable housing options than in Massachsuetts, many continue to make the commute back to Massachusetts to take advantage of those higher Massachusetts teacher wages. Can you blame them?

Just last month in a MultiBriefs Exclusive, I explored the struggle that teachers often face with declining wages. I referenced this report by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) which noted that teacher salaries have declined nationally over the last decade by 1.3 percent when adjusted for inflation. While some states such as Louisiana, Massachusetts, Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming have seen salaries rise by more than 10 percent in that time period, other states like Indiana and North Carolina have seen more than a 10 percent decline in salaries. Yet, declining wages is just one hurdle to be overcome with teacher recruitment.

This South Carolina newspaper article discusses some of the drastic measures that SC school districts are going to in order to address the housing shortage for new teachers in their state. The approach creates an interesting twist for the battle for teacher recruitment. Some rural SC school districts are actually taking steps to provide housing to prospective teachers by purchasing homes and offering them to teachers at a reduced rate.

The article went on to highlight the struggles in SC’s rural Dillon 4 School District where a typical teacher commute is greater than 45 minutes due to a lack of housing options nearby. Dillon 4 recently jumped at the opportunity to purchase a duplex with two 930 square foot units downtown and hopes to use it for teacher recruitment. Dillon had help doing this in the form of an $80,000 grant from the Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention and Advancement. The district is able to rent the units back to their teachers for $500 per month in rent. With both units now full, the district has its eye on a second property that it can use for teacher housing.

The article also highlighted another SC School District in nearby McCormick. There, school officials are in the process of renovating a $45,000 home and are looking into purchasing an apartment building. McCormick sees the strategy as a great recruiting and retention tool for teachers, but it will also allow the district to support a new residency program that the district is trying to build. Superintendent Don Doggett was quoted as saying this about the project: “"The residency model is like a medical residency. You spend more time learning a craft with a teacher, with mentors and being a part of the community, with the hope that you’ll stay,” Doggett said. “If we have something to help people get used to the natural pace of life (as a teacher) in rural areas, then they may make a long-term commitment both to the profession and to the community."

The expression “drastic times call for drastic measures” has taken an unanticipated turn for these and many other rural school districts across our country that struggle to attract qualities teachers into their communities. It seems counterintuitive in an age where many schools struggle to maintain funding for schools to be investing in real estate, but schools know that they can’t open their doors if they don’t have teachers to man their classrooms.

This article was written originally for MultiBriefs Education.