COLUMBIA, S.C. — School districts are looking to address hundreds of vacancies in the Midlands, hoping financial incentives will attract top talent.
Greg Turchetta, the chief communication officer for Richland School District Two, describes the current outlook for vacancies in the district as 'historic.'
He's looking towards next year, when Richland Two is estimated to have around 300 open teacher positions, an issue he is seeing nationally.
"The working conditions of a teacher, how school threats do you see nationwide? School shootings, these things have an impact. They have an impact that has some people say, 'I may not want to be in the classroom anymore.' [For] all of us that work in education, it's a calling."
Shortages are something that other districts in the Midlands are up against, too. According to Dr. Felicia Richardson, the Coordinator of Recruitment at Richland School District One, an estimated 250 vacancies are on the horizon for next year.
"When you look around, not just in education, there seems to be a limited workforce nowadays across the board. So for us, we have no future if we don't have educated children."
It's why so many districts are offering new incentives to boost their work force. Richland School District Two is offering a $3,000 signing bonus for new teachers. Richland School District One is giving $2,000 for new teachers and a $3,000 bonus for student teachers that sign a two-year contract. Lex-Rich Five has a $2,500 bonus, and at Lexington School District Two, they're also offering a $2,500 bonus for teachers who come to the district.
If it looks like a competition, that's by design, according to Turchetta. He tells us there's a bidding war amongst districts to hire the state's best candidates.
"The supply is low and the demand is high. You have to do as a school district what you need to do to attract top quality talent. So this is certainly one of those steps - put a signing bonus on the job, look at salaries and really go from there."
Looking ahead, Richardson is hopeful the shortages will result in positive change for the industry.
"Our whole department really needs to look at, 'how are we making people want to come to our profession as a whole?' And we are just kinda working within our circle of control and really hope that it would broaden and we'll really consider some of the practices that we have in education."
For those interested in working for Richland One, they are hosting a job fair on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Dreher High School.