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Northside Independent School District welcomed hundreds of new teachers to the district on Monday for two days of training and orientation.
So far, about 650 new teachers have joined the district for the 2024-2025 school year, a sign that recruiting efforts in San Antonio’s largest school district are paying off more this year than last.
Northside is the fourth largest district in Texas, with about 100,000 students.
“We’re still working on hiring approximately 200 teachers, so for the average of 6,500 teachers districtwide, we’re in a much better position this year than we were last year, but we’ve had to take some really aggressive recruiting measures,” Northside Superintendent John Craft said. “We have referral stipends; we’re paying for alternative certification pathways.”
Craft kicked off the district’s New Teachers Academy Monday morning with a speech to about 300 high school educators.
She told them that the most important thing is to build a relationship with their students. “We knew, and the science has indicated, that it’s really about that relationship that’s built very early in the school year so that students can learn and build that bond with teachers,” Craft said.
Craft also asked new teachers to lean on veteran teachers assigned as their mentors. New employees who were part of Northside’s teacher residency program had an early opportunity to build relationships with mentors.
Danyelle Foster and Priscilla Padilla participated in Northside’s teacher residency program last year and have been hired as first-year teachers in the district this year.
Danyelle Foster, a new U.S. history teacher at Brennan High School, and Priscilla Padilla, a new English language arts teacher at Rayburn Middle School, were part of the residency program. They said spending a year in the classroom under the guidance of a veteran teacher helps them feel more prepared to teach on their own.
“I have to maintain that connection with my students throughout the school year,” Foster said. “It was also a lot easier to get into the actual teaching with my mentor teacher, because she already trusted me.” [en el semestre de primavera].”
“I know exactly what I have to do as soon as I walk into the room. I know exactly how to plan and if it wasn’t for the time I had during residency, I don’t know what I would do,” Padilla explained. “I’m very excited. Of course, I’m a little nervous. I feel like a bird with new wings.”
Padilla recently graduated from Texas Tech University. Foster was enrolled in the residency program through the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Craft said Northside had slightly fewer teacher vacancies to fill this year compared to last year, and they are spread across the district’s many campuses. But she said it remains especially difficult to find special education teachers. About half of the district’s remaining 200 vacancies are in special education, and Craft added that many of those openings are for self-contained special education classes.
Special education was a difficult area to cover before the pandemic, but Craft said it’s even more difficult now.
“We’re not seeing people applying with the proper certifications, and that’s something we can ask the state (our legislators) to try to help us with in the future, because these are increasingly difficult positions to fill.”
And despite being in a better position than last year, Craft acknowledged that the teacher shortage is not over.
“I wish we could reduce vacancies overnight, but I think that will unfortunately be a challenge that we will have to address very strategically over the next few years,” Craft concluded.
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