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Teachers laid off in Gilbert asked to return for next school year, while Valley districts hunt for teachers

Gilbert Public Schools laid off more than 150 teachers in March because of lack of enrollment. Now, they’re asking some to come back.

GILBERT, Ariz. — Many of the teachers in Gilbert Public Schools who were told they were being laid off in March are now being offered a contract to work in the district next year.

Gilbert Public Schools laid off 152 teachers citing a decline in enrollment during the pandemic. However, districts around the Valley are continuing to hunt for teachers.

90 teachers who were told they’d be laid off are being asked back to Gilbert 

Gilbert Public Schools spokesperson Dawn Antestenis said 90 teachers that were laid off have been offered a contract for the next school year.

Antestenis said so far 54 of them have decided they’ll teach in Gilbert next year.

In a statement, Antestenis said the district has seen more resignations at the end of the school year than was anticipated.

These additional positions became available following end-of-year resignations and unanticipated retirements.  We usually do see a number of resignations at the end of each school year, and this year the number was slightly higher than expected. After the closure of the standard buyback window in January, which is an employee's opportunity to submit their resignation or retirement and be paid out on their leave accruals, resignations and retirements were lower than prior year trends. Late March, we re-opened the “buyback window” which resulted in additional resignations and retirements which has put us back on trend with prior years. This meant that we had a larger than usual number of positions become available for next year later in the year.

The teachers being asked back may not necessarily be going back to the jobs they held this year, but rather, an opening they are qualified for.

“One of my friends teaches ELL students, which is a special breed – us special ed teachers, and she was offered a job at an elementary school,” Andrea Becker said.

Becker is a special education teacher in Gilbert currently but was laid off in March.

She’s since found another job, and was not offered a contract back to Gilbert.
“It’s been a real emotional struggle,” Becker said.

Her focus is now on her current students that she won’t be teaching next year.

“I know where I’m going next year,” Becker said. “I found a job easily as a special ed teacher, but I don’t know where they’re going.”

School districts in the Valley searching for teachers

Meanwhile, several of the Valley’s largest school districts are searching for dozens of teachers to fill vacancies.

“The actual teacher retention rate has improved this year compared to the past few years,” Justin Wing, data analyst for the Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association, said.

The association represents school district human resources professionals.

Chandler Unified School District is looking to hire up to 90 more teachers, even with their drop in enrollment.

A spokesperson for Scottsdale Unified School District told 12 News the district has hired 75 teachers and their website still shows dozens of more openings for next school year.

Washington Elementary School District is also looking for 40 teachers for their students.

Dysart Unified School District said they have 72 certified openings, which is less than how many positions were open last year.

PVSchools tells 12 News they had 231 resignations and retirements this year, which a spokesperson said is a little higher than past years. The district said the pandemic is one factor in these, because of the challenges teaching in a pandemic has presented.

In total, PVSchools said because of adding new positions and filling leave of absence requests, they need to fill a little more than the 231 resignations and retirements.

However, Wing said often there are not many people applying for the positions.

“The unfortunate part, there are no applicants. There’s certainly no competition for each job, there’s a lack of candidates for each of those jobs,” Wing said.

Wing said that means schools have to figure out ways to still get their students taught.

“School districts have to leverage their substitute teacher pool. School districts have to leverage their parents who may have a degree in another field and maybe want to change their career and become a teacher – and there’s more and more opportunities to do so,” Wing said.

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