Demand For Teachers Is Up For Districts Across North Texas
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - The need for teachers is becoming top of mind for districts as many make the switch to in-person learning this fall.
George Rangel from Alliance AFT represents Dallas ISD staff. He says the demand for teachers is higher than ever this year and that many districts started hiring late in the game.
"Starting school, you want to make sure classrooms have a teacher in front of them," Rangel said.
He said schools across Texas are in the same boat, and there's a lot of reasons why. Some of which are the pandemic, the national teacher shortage and a worker shortage overall.
"We had a lot of teachers resign because of COVID," Rangel said. "We have a shortage of teachers and the district should have played a bigger role in making sure that they did well by the students, and unfortunately they haven't."
Over the past few weeks Dallas ISD and Arlington ISD have expressed their need for at least a few hundred teachers.
The same can be said for Fort Worth ISD who last week needed 190 teachers, but as of yesterday, needs 260 after their enrollment number grew.
To stay competitive, they upped their new teacher salary.
It's some thing Rangel says many districts may have to consider as income is another reason he believes many leave the business.
"If you want to retain and maintain teachers, increase their base salary."
Fort Worth ISD has their next career fair on Tuesday, July 27.
Dallas ISD is hosting one on Aug. 5.
