The DeKalb County School District will seek to fill several hundred teaching positions this summer, and officials have already held at least one job fair to do so.
Linda Woodard, the district's interim chief human capital management officer, said during the district's monthly meeting that some 392 jobs were posted on the district's careers website. As of Monday, more than 550 teacher positions were available. That number will surely rise after June 30, when contracts for the 2018-2019 school year end. DeKalb has lost an average of more than 850 teachers a year since the 2015-2016 school year.
District officials have tried raises, recruitment and retention bonuses, and targeted hiring in recent years among the strategies to improve turnover.
The number is compounded after several hundred uncertified teachers recently resigned or took paraprofessional jobs with the district after not meeting requirements to attain at least provisional certification by the end of the school year.
Unhappiness with school administration, teaching assignments and accountability/testing plays a role in high teacher turnover, with nearly 56 percent of teachers citing dissatisfaction in a study using teachers from 1993 to 2003.
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