Incentives Used to Recruit Teachers to Hamilton County’s Urban Elementary Schools Starting to Pay Off


By Beverly Carroll
Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Chattanooga Times Free Press

Incentives used to recruit teachers to Hamilton County’s urban elementary schools are starting to pay off, school officials said.

This time last year the Benwood Schools, nine urban elementary schools that share a $5 million, five-year grant to improve reading scores, had 19 teaching vacancies, according to records from Superintendent Jesse Register’s office. Monday, two days before classes start, Orchard Knob was the only Benwood school with an unfilled slot, records showed.

'We are way ahead of where we were last year,' Dr. Register said.

Hamilton County had 14 teaching vacancies systemwide on Monday, compared to around 30 this time last year, school officials said.

Hillcrest Elementary principal Rebecca Everett said the variety of incentives helped recruiting, including Chattanooga’s bonus pay, a forgivable mortgage from Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise and tuition for a master’s degree from the Osborne Foundation.

'I had 15 vacancies this year,' said Dr. Everett, whose Highway 58 area school is a Benwood school. 'The majority were filled by May. I’ve been a principal in the system for a number of years, and that’s fastest I’ve ever filled vacancies.'

Recruiting teachers for urban schools is a challenge nationwide, said Leslie Graitcer, a senior adviser for the Osborne Fellows initiative, administered through the Public Education Foundation of Chattanooga. She said groups across the country see teacher recruitment and retention as an area of focus in school reform. 'BellSouth will be giving a major grant to every state in the Southeast to address this,' Ms. Graitcer said. Many school districts are beginning to use incentives to attract teachers, she said. 'The fact that (Hamilton County) is down to as few empty slots as it is, especially in urban schools, is a real testament to the fact that they are doing a lot of right things,' Ms. Graitcer said.

Many teaching applicants were interested in the incentives, most of which apply only to the Benwood Schools, school officials said. The mortgage incentive from Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise, a private, not-for-profit group that promotes affordable housing, includes teachers who work at Brown and Battle academies, two new downtown elementary schools, said CNE Director Jerry Konohia.