Substitute teacher Andrew Carrillo teaches a third grade class at Cunningham Elementary School Monday, Feb. 29, 2016.
Monday, Aug. 7, 2023 | 2 a.m.
CCSD staffing issues
Andrew Carrillo is headed back to teaching. It won’t be full-time, but anything he can give is needed.
Carrillo, who works with youth in gang intervention, was a long-term substitute teacher for the Clark County School District between 2013 and 2016. With his current job being over four 10-hour shifts a week, he has Mondays free, and he wants to fill them by filling in.
The Las Vegas native, a product of CCSD’s east-side schools, sees it as a win-win. Working with children in the classroom will inform his gang intervention career, which speaks directly to him — his best friend from childhood was only 9 years old when he was killed in a 2001 drive-by shooting.
Carrillo’s first stint as a sub grew from his work at the afterschool program at Cunningham Elementary.
“The administrator at the school encouraged me to apply because they were in need of subs. She said that I had good classroom management. She told me that was like the main key to being a good sub and teacher,” said Carrillo, who is waiting for the state to finish renewing his license to be a substitute teacher. “Once I started subbing, I liked it a lot. I noticed that teaching was in my soul, my passion. I like to teach the next generation.”
While CCSD says that teacher vacancies are fewer than at this point last year, the district starts the new school year needing well more than 1,000 permanent, full-time classroom teachers.
So as it is most years, the biggest challenge for the district’s human resources department is filling teacher vacancies.
As of July 31, CCSD had 1,127 classroom vacancies, said Superintendent Jesus Jara.
District Director of Recruitment Brian Redmond said that’s a classroom coverage rate of 94%. meaning the remaining 6% of classrooms will be patched together with backups like substitutes and other teachers in the building filling in during what should be their preparation period.
“Our biggest challenge is trying to make sure that we have adults in classrooms, whether that’s fully licensed teachers or long-term subs,” Redmond said. “We’re also trying to push for retired teachers to come back to the classroom as well.”
Going into the 2022-23 year, CCSD has nearly 1,400 teacher openings.
Since then, human resources has hired another recruiter, bringing the team up to six people; enlisted principals to help market their campuses and join recruiting trips around the country; expanded the district’s foreign teacher visa program by about 100 more international teachers; and graduated two cohorts of support staffers who want to become full-time licensed teachers through a program with UNLV.
“We know we have to be patient,” Redmond said. “(High) vacancy numbers are not something brand-new to CCSD. It’s been around probably for 30 years.”
Redmond clarified that “adults in front of children” is not so literal when it comes to describingthe number of vacancies — he said that if it was defined like that, the number of vacancies would look smaller. Openings that are being plugged with long-term subs or fill-ins by the day or period are still advertised to job-seekers, and still considered vacancies, he said.
Jara said recently that 271 long-term substitutes have committed to taking on a vacancy indefinitely. Another 20 retired educators are returning to teaching.
He noted that districtwide, there are more than 1,127 openings for “licensed educators” — a broader category that includes school counselors, psychologists, social workers, speech-language pathologists and nurses. The given vacancy figure reflects only classroom teachers.
Jara said the schools with the most vacancies include Johnston, Swainston, Von Tobel, Escobedo, Monaco and Robison middle schools and Chaparral and Desert Pines high schools.
While they won’t be in place Monday, another 579 tentatively hired teachers are still undergoing state background checks, he added.
Jara said that the district was again looking at reassigning learning strategists — licensed teachers who coach fellow teachers — to provide direct student instruction. He said the district has about 670 learning strategists, and he would first consider schools that have the most openings when reassigning strategists. The strategists would not have to transfer school buildings, he said.
“For example, I have a school that has six classroom vacancies and has (four) learning strategies (and) one long-term sub,” he said. “So (now) you only have one vacant classroom because we’re going to dig deep with this principal and say these learning strategies need to be with children.”
Additionally, the School Board on Thursday will consider approving an agreement with Nevada State University to launch a “teacher resident” program. According to meeting documents, advanced Nevada State education students who have substitute licenses would get their own classrooms for the entire coming year, though they would be neither traditional substitute, student or first-year teachers. They would be closer to paid interns, with on-site mentors, and earn $250 a day, specifically at CCSD’s Transformation Network schools, a cluster of 23 elementary schools where children struggle the most with reading.
“Our people are working around the clock. We never stop recruiting,” Redmond said. “We don’t have a recruiting season. We recruit all the way through the summer, through the fall and spring. We’re just doing everything we can to try and make sure that we can get adults in front of kids.”
