'Our students can't wait:' hiring process drags while some BHS classes have no teachers

BROCKTON – Over the last two months since the start of the new school year, some students have spent class time sitting in the cafeterias of Brockton High School without a teacher to teach them.

Although each class has an adult present to watch over the kids, the school district doesn’t have enough teachers to lead every class and only a limited number of substitutes, leaving students to wander the halls throughout the day, according to several school officials.

The high school has 29 open teaching positions, Acting Superintendent James Cobbs said at last week's School Committee meeting, and 30 substitutes to cover the vacancies.

On top of the limited staff, another 20 to 25 teachers at the high school are absent each day, he said.

Cobbs said one teacher as of last week had been in school for only 13 days and didn't have any long-term medical reasons for their absences.

"We need teachers in front of students," said School Committee member Cynthia Rivas Mendes. "Some of these kids are missing lots of minutes of classroom time...our students can't wait."

Students want more teachers

At a School Committee meeting on Oct. 17, the committee's student representative Anthony Vega told the board that students want more teachers.

“Adding some extra staff to regulate students wandering the halls and disrupting education, which is a tough enough job already especially with a lack of faculty and 4,000 students in the building,” Vega said.

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After Brockton Public Schools laid off over 130 teachers, paraprofessionals and other school staff in May, the district now has many vacant teaching positions still waiting to be filled, from teachers to security specialists. In addition to overspending last year’s budget by $14.4 million, BPS is facing a roughly $18 million deficit in this year’s budget.

In a single class period, roughly 100 students sit in the cafeteria with one adult to monitor them, said school officials. About 1,200 students spend time in the cafeteria throughout the day, some for multiple class periods.

“Just because a position was funded last year does not mean there’s enough money available to fund it this year,” said City of Brockton’s Chief Financial Officer Tony Clarkson, who took control of the school district’s finances after BPS CFO Aldo Petronio was placed on administrative leave following the $14.4 million deficit announcement.

“That’s why we’re having discussions about a deficit, because there were positions that were hired and paid without funding behind them.”

Hiring process bogged down

Many School Committee members bemoaned the slow hiring process for teaching staff, as students across the district wait for new, high-quality teachers to be brought onboard.

"It's really important that we streamline that process and get people into classrooms as fast as possible," said School Committee member Jared Homer.

Without an official hiring process put in place by the school committee, Cobbs and Clarkson crafted a process that would ensure the school department has enough funding before they send out applications for new positions. The new position control policy, which gives Cobbs total control over new hires, was enacted in mid-September shortly after Cobbs was named acting superintendent.

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According to the district's hiring website SchoolSpring, there are 74 open positions for certificated teachers - at least 25 of which are special education teachers across all grade levels - and 21 openings for paraprofessionals.

Clarkson said that as soon as his financial team receives a request for a new school hire, the team immediately starts punching the numbers. They have to check how much money the new hire will cost the district to pay through the end of the fiscal year on June 30, on top of the salaries they're already obligated to pay through then for current teachers.

“It is a fairly detailed process," Clarkson said. “We’re doing the best we can to work quickly but also accurately because all of us, now that we know that there was a budget deficit, we all have a duty.”

'Our students can't wait'

Yet, the committee expressed concern over how long that process takes.

Several committee members suggested moving money from other areas of the budget to boost the amount they can spend on teacher salaries and speed up the process.

The district can transfer money within the budget's four main categories, but to move cash across categories, the school committee would need to take a vote.

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"The later we wait in the year the harder it is to get educators," Rivas Mendes said at school committee meeting in late October. "Why are we in October, almost November, and this is the conversation we're having."

Some high school students take to wandering the hallways, or even leaving the school building to go to McDonalds next door, during the class periods in the cafeteria.

"That's why the kids are in the hallways. You can't blame them," Cobbs said. They're sitting there all day long, I can't blame them."

BHS to hire new security staff

Cobbs said the school department recently received approval from the city to hire 12 new safety and security staff to monitor the BHS hallways and bathrooms.

“You’ll see more adults in the corridors soon,” Cobbs said.

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As part of a newly implemented hiring process in the district, Brockton's finance team, led by Clarkson, approved the school department's request to hire the new security specialists.

“We’re working hard to refine that process for evaluating the budget and making sure that we have the money to hire the people."

At a special school committee meeting last week, Cobbs said he is also looking into temporarily hiring a private security company to bring in additional security personnel to monitor the exterior doors and outside grounds. This would leave BPS's security specialists to focus on in-school issues like fights or vaping.

Cobbs said hiring a private security firm could cost the school district $50 per hour for each officer, with eight officers monitoring the grounds all week — a total of roughly $16,000 per week.

"It's not cheap," Cobbs said.

Cobbs said there is enough money in the BPS budget to afford the external security guards, which the city financial team has confirmed.

School Committee members questioned the high cost, adding that a request for proposal will need to be sent out due to the high costs, which will delay the process.

This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Brockton High students without teachers, hiring process bogged down