During their regular board meeting last week, the Churchill County School District approved hiring bonuses to attract new teachers to the district for the 2024-25 school year.
The district will provide a $2,500 relocation incentive to teachers who relocate from anywhere outside of Churchill County and a licensed teacher incentive of $7,000. After the first week of reporting, $3,000 of the bonus will be paid, with the balance paid on the September check after the first year of employment. New special education teachers, in very high demand, will receive a $12,000 incentive with $5,000 paid after the first week and $7,000 paid in September of the second year of employment.
Superintendent Derild Parsons said there are nearly 60 open teaching positions for the 2024-25 school year, 25% of the licensed staff. “I’m panicked, to be honest,” he said.
Covering classes with no teachers has been a significant problem for the district for the past two years, driving the board to incentivize substitute teachers during the board meeting in January.
While the country suffers a severe teacher shortage, Parsons said, “One of the issues here is housing. We get people on contract, and they can’t find a place to live, and we lose them.” He said it could run nearly $450,000 to fund a bonus program if the district were to fill every open position, but the likelihood of that happening is highly unlikely.
“I would be secretly ecstatic if we had to worry about spending that money because we filled all those positions,” said Trustee Joe McFadden.
Trustee Matt Hyde said that part of retaining teachers is the district's culture. “Getting things in place for behavior would speak volumes for retention.”
Funding for the bonuses will come from the remaining ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund) and from budgeted general fund money that hasn’t been used due to open positions.
In other business, trustees received a written report from Assistant Superintendent Stacey Cooper. They questioned her regarding the district behavior plan update and the curriculum review for English Language Arts and Mathematics. The district plans to hold training sessions in March for the district office staff, principals, and administrative staff with the Nevada Department of Education to launch the Restorative Practices required by the legislature.
Passed during the 2019 session, Senate Bill 89 and Assembly Bill 168 require each school district to complete Restorative Discipline Plans, formerly Progressive Discipline Plans, as an alternative to exclusionary disciplinary practices, which removed students from school when serious infractions occurred.
“Modeling restorative behavior has to start with the district office and principals if it is going to work,” said Cooper. “This training will give us the same language, and then we will train the trainers and teach the staff and then the students. We don’t have a common understanding, and we need to look at how are our behaviors impacting the schools.”
During the training, staff will look at real-life scenarios and embed the training into the district's behavior plans.
Trustees also asked Cooper about the efforts to select curriculum for ELA and math toward efforts at improving student achievement. Staff and administrators are currently examining samples from three products, HMH, Savvaas, and IReady, to review and score. The process aims to complement the Learning Centered Framework, diversity, and alignment to the Nevada standards.
Trustee Kathryn Whitaker had concerns about the purchase price of the curricula after a choice is made, as well as whether teachers would use the materials if they were available.
Cooper said that with 20% of the staff not being certified, the intention is to use the adoption of the curricula to provide support to the teachers and ideally have a set for every classroom.
Additionally, Trustees discussed budget preparations with Parsons asking each board member to share their budget priorities. Trustee Tricia Strasdin said she would like more discussion on the alternative classroom idea for behavior support, addressing the truancy issue, and a cost analysis of returning to K-5 grad schools.
Amber Getto said she also has received several inquiries from constituents regarding the issue of K-5 schools and would like to see a cost breakdown of that possibility as well as the pros and cons of academic performance in that scenario, along with the factors that caused the move to the grade level model that the district has now.
Hyde agreed, saying that the issue was one of the first big votes when he was first elected. He would also like to consider after-school tutoring and allowing interested teachers a stipend to run a program and help students improve their achievements.
Trustee Julie Guerrero-Goetsch would like to address security and the resource officer position at the high school and said the city of Fallon is in the process of filling that position for next year.
Whitaker said, “I would like to point out our district goals, which need to be paid attention to when deciding what to fund. Priorities need to go to what will help us meet the district goals of graduation rate, math support, and CTE completion.”
McFadden said he was eager to see data on the K-5 school concept and a focus on graduation, math, and ELA. “Our goals can’t be achieved without highly effective staff.”
Board President Gregg Malkovich said he was focused on recruitment. “If we don’t have staff, we won't improve any of this.”
The community thoughts on school district budget priorities are being solicited through noon on Monday, March 4, through an online survey. Go to https://forms.gle/SLq2fih9PKEJE1mH7 and let your voice be heard.
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