San Benito High School has added 12 teachers for the coming school year but still looks to fill two special education positions before school starts Monday.
Although school officials needed to fill only half the number of staff positions as last year, they're still trying to hire a speech therapist and a teacher for the visually impaired to fully staff the special education department.
Human Resources Director Mike Potmesil said it's no easy task.
"The bottom line is (that) there is an under-staffing of speech therapists and it's tough," he said. "These are two difficult positions to fill, not just for us, but for other schools."
Potmesil said only 200 of the needed 1,000 speech therapists are graduating each year from California universities - leaving around 800 vacancies at schools throughout the state.
In attempts to fill those positions, San Benito officials are turning to consulting firms, which recruit credentialed teachers from the Bay Area to work temporarily at schools until they can find full-time instructors.
They also looked into hiring interns from universities with speech therapy programs to help assist in classrooms - the school currently has two special education interns, from San Jose State University and California State University, Monterey Bay.
Considering the 2,925 students expected to attend San Benito this year, the school might have to hire additional teachers if class sizes exceed 38 students.
"Class sizes range from the low 20s to 38 (students)," Potmesil said. "They are loaded at this point because we don't know who is going to show up, and if we get too high, we might need to hire more teachers or current teachers might pick up an extra section."
San Benito usually hires around 20 new teachers annually. This year, however, the school had to fill just 14 positions, a decline Potmesil credits to two teacher-support programs - "Induction," a two-year skill-building program; and the "New Teacher Academy," where educators learn essentials such as teaching strategies and classroom management. The school further offers "support providers," veteran teachers who show new hires the ropes.
"Our New Teacher Academy and New Teacher support helps teachers new to the district be successful," San Benito High Principal Krystal Lomanto responded in an e-mail after the Free Lance attempted to phone her. "New teachers are assigned a Support Provider or Mentor and also have a Division Chair and Content Lead teacher to support their teaching efforts."
Of the teachers who left the school last year, most had moved away, but Potmesil said a couple of them were fired because they didn't meet the school's standards.
"We have to look a little harder (for teachers) and ask what we can do to help these kids learn," Potmesil said.
"It's kind of like the Olympics," he said. "They're not just out there one time - it's the constant refining of skills."
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