St. Paul Public Schools wants to hire more than 200 teachers and teacher aides for the next academic year. And the state's second-largest school district is setting aside $1.3 million in hiring and retention bonuses to get there.
District leaders are specifically hoping to fill 70 special-education positions for the fall. Those spots come with a $10,000 bonus paid out over three years. Executive Chief of Human Resources Patricia Pratt-Cook said about 17% of the district's students qualify for special-education services and called the bonuses a "proactive step to ensure our students have the best educators in the state."
"Our students deserve nothing less, and in this competitive job market, we need to do everything we can to attract the best candidates to our classrooms," she said.
The St. Paul district's incentive program is the latest example of an ongoing struggle to keep Minnesota's schools fully staffed as veterans retire and new hires drop out at sharply higher rates than before the pandemic. Other districts, including Minneapolis, have also struggled in recent years to maintain a robust bench of subs and special-education teachers.
In the Anoka-Hennepin district, the state's largest, the school board approved a bonus program for substitutes — $500 for teachers and $400 for paraeducators who work at least 50 days between Sept. 6 and Jan. 31 or Feb. 1 and June 8.
Scott Croonquist, executive director of the Association of Metropolitan School Districts, said districts across the state have been looking for ways to ensure they're fully staffed. Several, like St. Paul, have turned to hiring and retention bonuses as a way to persuade teachers on the brink of retirement to stay or to quickly hire for those positions.
That's because private sector employers are providing competitive wages and benefits, Croonquist said. Minnesota continues to see some of the lowest unemployment rates in the country and the well of available workers is shallow.
"We're going to see more and more of this," Croonquist said.