The Dallas Independent School District (DISD) is hosting a series of job fairs and bumping starting pay for teachers in anticipation of a potential shortfall of 200-400 teachers next school year.
Hiring events are posted on the district’s website, with the latest scheduled event set for August 3, not even two weeks before the 2023-2024 academic year starts.
In an effort to get enough classroom teachers, DISD authorized the payment of a $3,000 hiring bonus for new teachers, and the new starting pay is $61,000 per year. It is also allowing for a $4,000 reimbursement for alternative teacher certification in the event that applicants are not certified.
“If you have a huge passion for children, a huge passion for community, if you’re really, you know, in your heart and desire want to make an impact [then] Dallas is the district for you,” said DISD Special Projects Coordinator Melody Tillman, speaking with NBC 5.
“We have so many students that can definitely use an everyday person in the classroom that just wants to pour love into students,” Tillman said.
Roughly 140,000 students were enrolled at DISD for the 2022-2023 school year, and the district budgeted for about 10,800 teachers. However, it is currently unclear how many are currently employed.
The Dallas Express reached out to the labor union that represents DISD teachers, Alliance/AFT.
Rena Honea, the organization’s union local president, commented on the incentives for new teachers, telling The Dallas Express:
“The administration has given a glimpse of their intentions for compensation with the brand-new teachers with no experience entering the campuses in the 2023-2024 school year. And for many of the loyal employees that have been serving students for several to many years, their morale is much lower than the newer employees.”
“They’re demoralized because their expertise and experience are unrecognized and not respected. Novice teachers will receive a salary greater than those who have worked tirelessly for several years.”
As previously reported in The Dallas Express, teachers at DISD have been frustrated with the district’s leadership and its seeming indifference to educators’ valid concerns, with one instructor claiming at a school board meeting back in January that DISD had fostered a culture of disrespect toward teachers.
“It is reflected in policy, in the inequitable, unethical compensation system, in the absence of teacher’s voices and policy-making within the district,” said Elizabeth Farris, a DISD special population instructor.
Farris cited “classroom disruption” and “violence” as things teachers feel DISD is not providing enough support for, referencing the killing of a teaching assistant at the hands of a student with special needs in 2021.
A September poll conducted by The Dallas Express last year lent further credence to the notion that there is widespread dissatisfaction with DISD’s administration and its elected Board of Trustees. The poll found that 49% of respondents believed the district’s poor academic record was because of “mismanagement.”
The Dallas Express reached out to the district for comment on the number of possible teacher vacancies it needed to fill before the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year but did not hear back by press time.
