City schools officials are resorting to five-figure "hiring incentives" to staff some especially hard-to-fill positions.
The San Diego Unified School District said in a news release issued on Tuesday that prospective hires for special-education teaching and school-nursing positions will be offered $10,000 under an agreement worked out with the San Diego Education Association. The tentative agreement between the district and the SDEA will need to be ratified by both parties. In the case of the school board, that will likely take place at a meeting to be held later this month.
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Officials blame the situation on what they call a "labor shortage exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic."
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“Together, we have reached an agreement that allows our schools to better support our students who are still recovering from the effects of the pandemic,” Sharon Whitehurst-Payne, president of the San Diego Unified Board of Education, is quoted as saying in the news release.
The plan would affect both new hires to the district who come online in the 2022-23 school year as well as staffers currently employed by the district who hold both special-ed and general-ed credentials and who would accept a transfer to special-ed positions between May and November of this year.
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San Diego Unified plans on holding a job fair — not limited to the special-ed and school-nursing positions — on June 24 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the district headquarters in the 4100 block of Normal Street.
