Jun. 24—Gainesville Independent School District needs teachers for the upcoming school year.

"Nationwide and statewide, we are seeing a huge issue with hiring enough teachers for the next school year, and we're not immune to any of that," said Paula Moore, the director of human resources.

"We're at the point that we're having to entertain any and all options when it comes to our classrooms," said Superintendent DesMontes Stewart. "Either we're going to have some large classes, or we're going to have to think outside the box to get a certified teacher in front of our kids."

As of Monday, there were 25 teacher positions available with more to potentially open in the near future.

"The last day a teacher can resign their position without jeopardizing or having penalties to their teaching certificate is July 4, so I anticipate we'll see a few more resignations in the next two weeks," said Moore. "Once we hit that July 4 day, they have to get Dr. Stewart's approval to accept any resignation at that point, which is a rare occurrence, and we'll hold them to their contract that they've already signed, unless there's extenuating circumstances."

The school district is seeking alternative measures to try to find teachers.

"We are part of a program with GEC [Global Educational Concepts] that brings in people from outside the United States who are certified teachers," said Moore. "GEC has a program that sponsors their visas so they can come work here. We've hired seven teachers so far from that program. Of course, they are going to need a lot of support once they get here because they are looking for housing, they are going to need transportation and file for their social security cards... we've got three more slots that we can hire, but at this point, it's getting real close for us to be able to hire them and then process in time for them to get their visas in order to be here by August 3.

"We have also been reaching out to alternative certification programs, but as you might imagine, everybody in the state is doing the same thing we are," continued Moore. "We're also part of the Region 11 consortium for our application system, so last week I sent out a mass email to everyone in there saying that we still have jobs. I got a few responses, but not very many."

"We are actually looking at some distance learning as well," said Stewart. "It is an opportunity where the kids in a classroom learn from a certified teacher, but the certified teacher may be in Austin or Louisiana. You still have someone in the room to proctor: to make sure the kids are in there, take attendance, and things of that nature."

Many teachers are resigning to work closer to home with a shorter commute.

"Principals and everyone is doing all they can do to find applicants," said Moore. "It's just very, very difficult, so we'll continue to do the best we can and start developing game plans for next steps."

A new compensation plan was approved at the meeting, which is aimed at enticing teachers to work at GISD.

"We worked with TASB [the Texas Association of School Boards] to do a salary study, and we've been reviewing those and determining our next plan of action," said Moore. "We increased the teacher pay scale by four percent, so the starting salary now is $46,035 for a teacher, and it will be adjusted to start at $48,000. That will help us greatly in recruiting teachers where pay is an issue."

Stipends were also raised for high need areas and additional job responsibilities. These include foreign language and teaching Spanish, SPED self contained, junior high science and math and department chair/lead teacher. Base pay was also increased for bus drivers, as well as staff compensated with the auxiliary, clerical/paraprofessional and administrative pay scales received a four percent increase based on midpoint.

The cost of these changes are estimated at $881,756.80, but that number will vary based on the ability to fill positions and the experience level of staff hired.

"We had to make sure that we did this as fairly and as equitably as possible," said Stewart. "This is not the last recommendation that we are going to be making, because we're going to continue to evaluate the different positions and different pay scales to provide a better living wage for our faculty and staff."

Budget workshop

GISD expects to receive less money from the state, but more money overall, due to increased local tax revenues.

"Our school district receives revenue from three different sources. We have our local sources, our state sources and our federal sources," explained Alyce Greer, the director of finance. "We have seen a pretty big jump in our property values, so that's why you see an increase to our local revenues by about $2.3 million ... State revenue is decreasing by $1.1 million. The way we have the state funding formula, any time we receive from property values rising, the state money is going to decrease."

While the property values are rising, the tax rate is dropping. The proposed tax rate is $1.0318, which is a little more than three cents down from last year's tax rate of $1.0620.

"I've had some individuals talk about the school district raising their taxes," said Stewart. "Let me go on the record and say that since 2012, GISD has lowered our tax rate by 30 cents. That is unheard of."

The next 2022-23 budget workshop is slated for early August. The proposed budget will be advertised and voted on by the end of August.

In other business

—Next year, all standardized tests will be taken online to be able to get test scores back sooner so teachers can better plan for future lessons;

—The board approved A-1 Paving to complete replacement and repairs of the Intermediate School back parking lot;

—A yearly agreement with University of North Texas was renewed to allow UNT students seeking a career in education to work with GISD teachers and complete student teaching.