It’s hiring season for new teachers, and Taylor Independent School District is using a variety of incentives to attract and retain qualified instructors and other employees.
At the March 20 meeting, the Taylor ISD Board of Trustees unanimously approved a signing bonus of $1,000 for teachers with five years or less of experience and $1,500 for those with six or more years who accept a job before the end of May, as well as a $1,000 incentive for teachers who obtain certification for English as a Second Language.
“Right now, we are in the teacher recruitment phase,” said Superintendent Devin Padavil in a phone interview. “It is hiring season for the school district and we want to use incentives to hire experienced teachers in Taylor Texas.”
In addition, trustees approved bumping up a referral payment from $300 to $500 for employees who bring in someone else to work for the district.
“The thing that has helped us the most is word of mouth, and we need to continue to capitalize on it,” Padavil said at the meeting.
Padavil said all these tools, especially for recruiting experienced teachers, were important to help the school district continue to grow and improve.
“We know that the number one thing we can do to improve a student’s education is to put a highly qualified, experienced and skilled teacher in front of them,” Padavil said. “We have several new teachers in the first one to three years of their career who are doing an incredible job in the classroom, but when we have teachers who have shown that they know how to work with students and make up ground and help them reach their academic goals, we know that is invaluable. So we want to come out there early and do what we can to find good teammates for the rest of our people.”
The $1,000 ESL incentive, which will be paid half in December and half in May, according to the district, is also an important tool to help students.
“Knowing our demographics and knowing that we have a number of students who are emergent bilingual, we want to be able to have teachers that already have the ESL stipend,” Padavil said. “And some teachers are doing that on their own and pursue that additional certification, but we want to reward their efforts … people who have added to their toolbelt for the sake of our kids.”
