Sunday, Feb. 6, 2005 | ||
Bad Links? | Competition fierce to hire teachersBy J. FRANK LYNCH Its getting tougher and tougher to attract qualified teachers to Georgia, even in Fayette County where classroom positions are coveted but often dont pay as much as surrounding areas. Theres a lot of competition for teachers right now, and theres not enough students going to college to be teachers, said Fayette County Superintendent John DeCotis. It makes it even more difficult, too, because the certification process is so much harder than it used to be. For example, one challenge facing the states 188 school systems is a new mandate requiring that high school special ed teachers be certified in specific subject areas, like math or science. Previously, special ed was considered its own area of expertise. In a meeting Jan. 24, members of the Board of Education approved the tentative staff allotments for next school year, even though theres no way of knowing yet how many teachers Fayette County will need, or how much of their salaries the state will be willing to pay. But we had to go ahead and get these openings approved so we could start hiring, said DeCotis. Some systems require their teachers to sign contracts in Februrary now, and we dont want to have to do that. Not counting anticipated openings from retirements or resignations, just 25.5 new instructional positions will be created in the fall. Ten of those are made necessary by growth at Whitewater High School, which will add an 11th grade. The school on Ga. Highway 85 South will also get a new vice principal, one counselor and a media specialist. We may ask for more teachers once we know what were getting from the state budget, DeCotis said. Two weeks ago, all five board members, DeCotis and other administrators traveled to Atlanta to meet with state lawmakers who represent Fayette County. We had a good session, DeCotis said, adding that one of the main concerns is a proposal to do away with using local property tax revenue to fund schools, replacing it with a statewide sales tax. Fayette Countys operations budget topped $156 million last year, but only about half of that came from state sources. Under the current method for funding schools, the county is able to make up the difference, and then some, because it has one of the wealthiest tax digests in Georgia. The state gives us their 50 percent, but where would we get the other 50 percent? DeCotis asked. They could give us 100 percent to fund our schools, but their 100 percent isnt the same as our 100 percent. He continued, We hire about 300 teachers solely from local property taxes, that the state says we dont need. Where would we get our orchestra teachers who are extra, our band teachers who are extra, our classroom teachers who are extra? Thats what were concerned about. Gov. Sonny Perdue is offering Georgia teachers a 2 percent pay raise in his proposed $17.4 billion state budget, but many classroom veterans say the meager increase will do little to ease the pain of going without raises for two straight years. Locally, Fayette teachers were given a 1 percent raise last year when the state offered none. |
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