After an unprecedented school year brought on by pandemic woes and uncertainty, the Hot Springs School District recorded the largest loss in staff members in years, prompting the decision to approve a new recruitment and retention plan to offer additional compensation and incentives.
"It's important for our school board and for myself to provide as much financially that we can to our staff to show them that we appreciate them, that we value them, that they are professionals," said Hot Springs School District Superintendent Stephanie Nehus. "And, you know, I'm very biased but I do believe that educators are the most precious professionals because they do educate our future. I mean, they have a huge impact on that."
The board passed the plan at its July 20 meeting.
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Nehus said a 3% pay raise was approved for all staff members back in the spring but the new plan will give certified staff members an additional $5,000 while classified staff members receive $4,000. The recruiting incentive will give certified staff $1,000 just for signing a contract while classified staff will receive $500 along with additional retention incentives throughout the year.
"We're blessed to be able to utilize the ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funds that we're receiving due to the pandemic to be able to provide that financial incentive to our staff -- to new staff coming to us -- but also to our current staff to be able to keep them here," she said.
The additional incentives will be paid out in equal tiers with the first half being paid out in November and the second half in May of 2022. Nehus noted that staff must achieve certain benchmarks in order to receive the money.
"And so it's not just, 'Stay in the district -- get the money,'" she said. "It's really a focus on, we want everybody in our district -- the expectation is to be the very best that you can be -- to give the best professional role that you can while you're in our district."
As of last May, the district had lost eight certified employees and five classified employees due to COVID-19 concerns. The district has also had five certified teachers resign to teach in the surrounding school districts and one classified employee. According to the plan notes, pay was always stated as one of the reasons the resigning teachers decided to leave the district during the exit meetings. The plan noted the Hot Springs School District is a diverse, high-poverty district with the six other school districts in Garland County having a lower percentage of poverty students as well as racial diversity.
"With the other school districts only being a few miles apart and salary schedules being varied, the Hot Springs School District struggles to retain experienced teachers," the plan said. "In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has led several teachers to resign throughout the school year which is highly unusual. As the district works to increase pay by 3%, utilizing the Teacher Salary Equalization Funds along with district funds, for all staff to begin closing the gap among the surrounding districts, there is a need for additional incentives to recruit and retain high-quality staff."
Given the statistics, Nehus said the district fully embraces and is "most proud" of its diversity.
"That's something that we just, we live on," she said. "That's who we are. But we are the most diverse district here in Garland County and we do have the highest poverty rates here in Garland County and so with that there are challenges. ... We have amazing kids. All of our kids are amazing. We have amazing teachers.
Another big challenge, Nehus noted, was the fact there are seven school districts in the county.
"That's unique for the state and so while we all support one another -- all the superintendents work together; we collaborate, we value, you know, the fact that we all have different opportunities for students and for families -- we do have to compete for staff," she said. "You know, salary schedules are different. Our smaller school districts, obviously, struggle with the fact that the larger school districts can pay their employees a little bit more. And so, all of those things come together."
Nehus said regarding the uncommon school year that they saw the social/emotional impact not only on their students but on their staff, as well. In addition to following and enforcing protocol safety measures, teachers also had to teach both virtually and in person as many factors, Nehus said, played into the significant loss of staff during the year.
"But last year was a unique year," she said. "I mean, everybody knows that. But never -- and last year I finished my 12th year here in our school district -- never have I seen us lose that many staff members in the middle of a year. I mean, we, traditionally, turn over 20, 30, sometimes 40 staff members in a summertime, but the fact that we had lost, you know, eight certified staff members throughout the course of the year -- that was just unheard of. We were hiring teachers in January."
Nehus said the challenges did not stop at the end of the school year but the applicant pool this summer has been much smaller than in the past. She said while they usually have hundreds of applicants for an elementary teacher opening, they have not seen that this year. They have, however, filled nearly every position as of the July 20 board meeting, with the last two being in special education in which current paraprofessionals were given the opportunity to become a certified teacher.
"So it was a huge challenge," Nehus said. "I talked to my colleagues here in Garland County and across the state, and everyone's applicant pool was much smaller this year than we've ever seen.
"But we're happy to say we are fully staffed and we will move forward. ... Last count, I think we have 55 new staff members this year. That's one of the higher numbers that we've seen in past several years. I do account that to a pandemic. And so this plan to encourage people to stay here in Hot Springs School District. We provide amazing professional development, we grow our teachers and our employees and when you put that much into them you want them to stay, obviously.
"If you're providing professional development and professional growth and then they leave, you've got to provide that again to somebody new coming in. And so there's lots of pieces that come in to what we do but we are excited to offer this and we hope that it's going to keep people here in the district," she said.