As IPS starts the 2023-24 school year, the district still needs 150 more teachers
As the Indianapolis Public Schools district heads into a new school year on Monday, IPS is still trying to fill around 150 teaching positions but said most of the staff affected by the Rebuilding Stronger plan have been placed into new positions.
In an update to the IPS school board last week, district leaders said that more than 90% of the staff who were impacted by changes under the Rebuilding Stronger plan have found new positions in the district.
This school year marks the first year of implementation for some of the changes under Rebuilding Stronger, which aims to increase the district's overall enrollment and provide equitable access to programming for students. The plan also entailed closing six schools, a decision that impacted 300 IPS staff.
Some of those 300 staff members retired or left but district officials said it's impossible to know if they left because of the Rebuilding Stronger plan.
As of last week, the district still had 152 classroom teaching vacancies out of the 1,308 classroom teaching positions as well as 204 school support staff vacancies out of 905 positions.
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Those numbers represent a 12% vacancy rate for teaching positions and a 22% vacancy rate for school support staff positions.
IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson told reporters after Thursday’s meeting that it’s the district's priority to make sure students are being carefully supervised by an adult in every classroom.
“Our principals are fully aware of where those gaps are and they have been making plans along the way, whether that is combining classrooms or a different adult, substitutes for example, who are present to be sure we can cover those classroom vacancies,” Johnson said.
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IPS director of employment and operations Sandy Bombick said that the district is seeing higher vacancies in high school teaching positions and in subject areas like math and science.
Teacher vacancies are a perennial issue for schools and shortages have only increased for some districts due to the strains put on teachers during the pandemic.
The IPS teacher retention rate has been increasing since 2019 and for the past two years has remained steady at around 74%, according to an analysis of state data by the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation.
Some of IPS’s success may have to do with the $15 million the district planned to spend on three rounds of retention bonuses through 2022-2023 and mental health and wellness initiatives for IPS staff.
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On top of that, all IPS teachers and support staff affected by school closures or mergers from Rebuilding Stronger who stayed through the end of last school year were given $10,000 retention bonus.
Of the 300 affected staff, 109 transitioned to James Russell Lowell School 51 or Frederick Douglas School 19. The other 191 staff were placed in other positions across the district.
Contact IndyStar reporter Caroline Beck at 317-618-5807 or CBeck@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolineB_Indy.
Caroline's reporting is made possible by Report for America and Glick Philanthropies. As part of its work in Marion County, Glick Philanthropies partners with organizations focused on closing access and achievement gaps in education.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IPS keeps most affected by Rebuilding Stronger but 150 teachers short
