Trending
The School District of Lee County is working to implement changes that will let it hire -- and retain -- employees as the "Great Resignation" continues to make both difficult.
The School Board of Lee County heard some changes this week that district staff is considering to offset staffing challenges that are affecting the entire country.
Human Resources Executive Director Rob Dodig told the elected board a nationwide survey was taken in October 2021 regarding K-12 hiring issues from Education Week. In October, conditions were "very severe," or "severe," as up to 40 percent of respondents said they had staffing shortages at their location.
The survey revealed that 77 percent of respondents said they struggled to hire a sufficient number of substitute teachers, 68 percent said they struggled to hire bus drivers and 55 percent said they struggled to hire paraprofessionals.
"Our statistics essentially mirror that," Dodig said.
A follow-up survey done a month later, in November 2021, said the shortages significantly worsened, with 52 percent reporting hiring conditions as "very severe," or "severe."
"We know in November Omicron had come into our lives. We saw a significant spike in October, November and December relevant to vacancies,” Dodig said.
Termination
Division of Human Resources Project Coordinator Dr. Shellie Halstead said district staff has categorized vacancies into two groups -- long-term vacancies terminated and short-term vacancies that ran between one to 45 days. She said back in fiscal year 2020, the district had very low turnover rates -- 20 percent for instructional staff and 23 percent for non-instructional.
That spiked to 29 percent at the end of 2021.
The district has seen a increase in the number of non-instructional staff terminations, basically workers leaving the district for whatever reason.
"We are losing non-instructional staff right now greater than the past, Halstead said.
Dodig said 161 more individuals that have terminated their non-instructional positions than had at this time last year. Those positions include paraprofessionals, bus drivers, food service and custodians.
According to a chart shown, there were 336 who terminated in fiscal year 2020, 343 in fiscal year 2021 and 504 in fiscal year 504.
The top two reasons provided for termination include personal and retirement. In fiscal year 2021 56 percent said personal and 14.7 percent retired. In fiscal year 2022, 67.5 percent provided a personal reason, while 7.5 percent said retirement.
Dodig also pointed to probationary release, which rose to 5.1 percent from 2.5 percent in fiscal year 2022.
“I believe we need to focus on that because that is preventable,” he said, adding that those individuals may need more training, or something else that they are not sharing with the district, but that the district could provide.
For non-instructional staff, again the top two reasons were personal, 64.9 percent, and retirement at 12.6 percent. Probationary release again increased from 2.3 percent in fiscal year 2021 to 5.3 percent in fiscal year 2022.
Board member Betsy Vaughn said the bottom line is teachers are not only underpaid, but not respected, which sometimes comes from a principal who may not respect the expertise a teacher may have.
“I’m absolutely positive that is what it is. COVID is the icing on the cake, the cherry on top,” she said. “Nowhere here is that addressed. It can’t be because it is not a black and white piece of data. I know we are data driven, but frankly I look back at my own experience. All of it points to, I love this profession, but I just can’t take it anymore. I am done.”
Surveys
To gather additional information about what is taking place at the school sites, the district issued a frequency of school-based absences survey, one that was done with principals. Dodig said they received 55 responses to the survey. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed said they had a teacher out every day, while 15 percent said a teacher was out three to four times a week.
“Fifty-six percent of our school locations every day are missing one teacher. Twenty-three percent of school locations are missing at least one paraprofessional,” Halstead said.
The district broke it down further, asking to rate the difficulty with covering short-term vacancies at their location. The top three positions that had coverage difficulty were paraprofessionals, teachers and custodians.
“Paraprofessionals are a significantly low-paid position and we don’t have substitutes for those paraprofessionals,” Dodig said. “That is the most difficult area to cover.”
The survey also asked those who indicated they were leaving, when they anticipated it would happen, at the end of the year or within the next one to two years. The top three reasons for both those who are planning to terminate employment with the district this year, and within the next one to two years, was retirement, inadequate salary/performance pay and general working conditions.
Dodig said they can control those reasons and so the impact it has on the district.
In an effort to try to triangulate the issue, the district issues an annual instructional survey that asks “if a friend asked me, I would recommend that they take a job at my current school, or department,” which is a question to mark their satisfaction.
Out of 3,409 surveyed, 35 percent answered they strongly agreed and 40 percent said they agree in fiscal year 2020. In fiscal year 2021, out of 3,657 who answered, 43 percent said they strongly agreed and 38 percent agreed.
“We saw an increase in the strong agreement. To me that is interesting knowing how difficult last year was,” Halstead said.
Dodig said the 25 percent that showed they were dissatisfied, went down to 19 percent in 2021, which he said is still too high.
“If all of those people would leave, that is a difficult situation to deal with,” he said.
Last year the district launched a non-instructional survey, which was simplified and offered in English and Spanish. The survey revealed that 33 percent only see themselves working in the district for zero to four years, which Dodig said is significant.
Reinventing the Workplace
The meeting also touched upon reinventing the workplace, which Dodig said could keep K-12 education relevant in the area and around the country.
“We are trying, we are going to try to reverse some of the trends that you have seen in all of this data,” he said.
Ongoing retention efforts include retention bonus; bargaining; expanded mental health wellness initiatives; district office staff support for schools; stay interviews/exit interviews and professional development.
Dodig said they are looking at a more robust way to conduct exit interviews, such as calling people on the phone, because if they do not know absolutely why people are leaving the district it is difficult to address the issue.
When recruiting new teachers, pay and benefits used to be the two top contenders, which now has changed to flexibility in a job, mental health day, family leave and remote work. With 4,363 graduates from colleges of education in Florida, Dodig said they have to focus on reaching career changers, and those who want to teach to fill the need.
The proposed retention efforts include exploring flexible schedules; guest teacher pay and benefits; benefits that support work life balance, such as childcare; additional career paths; expanding diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; fostering employee engagement and expanding support for leaders.
“We need to talk to our staff, engage them. It is important for everyone on your staff to know you care about them and thinking about them,” Dodig said.
Dodig said they might also propose a different schedule for high schools, which might help retain staff. Another possibility is having a no meeting day, possibly once a month.
“We are exploring some flexible schedules. A proposed policy about remote work for individuals in this building, 12-month employees,” he said of the district office.
Other options might include job share and sponsoring teachers from other countries through a Visa program.
Superintendent Dr. Ken Savage said it’s about addressing some of the foundational pieces, which actually create some of their supply and demand issues.
“Simply, the way we schedule students in schools creates the number of vacancies that we have,” he said, adding that if they change schedules it could “substantially change the amount of teachers that we need in various subject areas and levels. It will require us to look at some of the instructional pieces and system level issues that we need to look at. We are deeply underway for all of the planning for next year. If we were to make adjustments, (it will) drastically enhance working conditions.”
A large issue this year is the need for more bus drivers. He said Lee County has the challenge of its choice system, which provides parents with a large number of schools from which they can choose. For example in subzone E2 there are 17 elementary schools from which to choose.
“That is adding to the issue that we have. Knowing how much school families have to miss strictly because a bus cannot get there to pick them up. That impacts the bottom line as well . . . making it better for folks by addressing underlining foundational issues,” Savage said.