The school year is about to commence, and the Renton School District is in better shape with their staffing needs compared to last year.

RSD has been able to hire 139 new staff members, leaving only 25 positions left to be filled. Last year at this time, the district was tasked with filling 53 positions.

The successful hiring numbers are largely attributed to early hiring of recruits before placing in specific positions, Renton Education Association contract release date being moved up, early release of budget and staffing allocations, as well as increasing the focus on out-of-state recruiting. The district has also been able to implement a new online application system that has helped reduce the turnaround time by almost three weeks.

“We were pleasantly surprised to see the results of our out-of-state recruiting efforts from the previous year,” said Debra Tito, executive director of human resources. “We met and hired a number of teachers who heard about Renton from teachers we hired from their school last year. We are very pleased with the increased efficiency and decreased turnaround time our online system has provided. We knew it would help, but didn’t know it would make the difference it has.”

The low number of open positions at this time of the year can be seen as a success, especially considering early Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) predictions of teacher shortages in Washington. A OSPI/AWSP survey from last year reveals that 45 percent of principals were not able to meet their need for fully-certified classroom teachers by fall. Almost 24 percent of principals said that they were in “crisis mode” because they could not find qualified and certificated candidates, and nearly 69 percent said that they were in “struggling mode.”

Of all the academic areas, hiring has suffered most in special education. In the OPSI survey, 66 percent of principals reported having trouble finding credentialed staff for the special education.

Last year, RSD had six open special education positions and three positions were filled with out-of-endorsement staff. This year, there were five open positions and all hires hold proper endorsements. Previously, five of the seven district psychologists and three of the four occupational therapists were contracted staff. The district has reduced that to three contracted staff this year, and they are aiming to eliminate all contracted staff by 2017.

The hiring success for the special education staff is attributed to the $2,000 recruitment bonus, the available training and mentoring support from other staff, as we all and faster administrative response to the candidates.

“Special education staffing is always more challenging than general education staffing,” said Tito. “Our recruiting efforts — out-of-state, early offers, etc. — have helped us get ahead of the shortage a little better each year. It’s still not where we want it to be. We hope that the alternative routes program will help para educators who want to become teachers will help us grow our own special education teachers.”

Minority employees have increased from 21.9 to 25.2 percent from 2013 to 2015. According to Tito, this 3.3 percent increase is a “concentrated effort to recruit and retain minority staff.”

“We recruit at universities that have highly diverse student populations,” she said. “This outreach includes on-site recruiting fairs, advertising through various venues such college career centers and teaching schools, direct contact with professors at colleges of education, and online advertising through various websites and associations. Increased focus on ensuring recruiting materials, advertising and recruiting teams always reflect the rich diversity of the Renton School District staff, students and community. Our goal is for our teachers to reflect the diversity of our students.”

The district’s highly effective recruiting and hiring practices have earned them an invitation to participate in a Teacher Shortage Recruitment Campaign Focus Group.

According to Tito, the district will continue to focus on hiring earlier for spring.

“We continue to work to start hiring earlier in the spring,” she said. “In addition, we’ll attend out-of-state job fairs this fall to recruit teachers completing their program in December/January as we often have openings mid-year (due to maternity leaves, etc.).”