Virginia’s Fairfax County Public Schools is retaining over 90% of teachers for the first time in four years, a promising sign that teachers may not be leaving the school division at the rate they were in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The year-to-year teacher retention rate has been improving, Superintendent Michelle Reid told the school board at Thursday’s meeting. And while the broad trend is promising, special education retention rates are also showing positive trends, Reid said.
Special education teacher turnover rates were highest immediately after the pandemic, Reid said, but those turnover rates have been declining over the last three years.
“I believe people are mission driven,” Reid told the board. “And one of the things I think that’s most amazing about Fairfax County Public Schools are the quality of the people that work within the schools.”
The school division hired fewer substitute teachers this year, but Chief Human Resources Officer William Solomon said there are still between 4,500 and 5,000 substitutes on staff.
The county is reporting an 80-90% substitute teacher fill rate each day and week, Solomon said, and “a big portion of it is also the retention of our teachers.”
While the county is retaining more teachers, so there are fewer roles to fill, the school division is getting international help to fill some of its open roles.
As part of an international educational partnership program, Fairfax County has 101 new ambassador teachers this year and 29 returning members, Reid said. The program, which is also used in Prince William and Loudoun counties, allows teacher ambassadors — in the U.S. on special visas offered through the State Department — to instruct in those school divisions.
The county, Reid said, is planning to add another 100 ambassadors next year. It also started a pilot program to consider middle and high school math and science teachers from South Korea.
“So we’re really having an opportunity to hire some of the best-of-the-best teachers (from) around the globe for our county here,” Reid said.
Last year, Reid said the Participate Learning initiative had over 20,000 applications from global teachers for 750 U.S. positions.
School board member Ricardy Anderson said some of the international teachers haven’t been successful “because of language issues.”
“That language barrier in a couple cases should have been picked up in the interview and wasn’t, and should have been picked up prior to recruitment and wasn’t,” Reid said. “So we’ve addressed the recruitment piece from the Participate Learning side, and the interview process is going to be revisited.”
Solomon added that the school system is reviewing the interview process “to make sure that things like that are picked up on the front end, so that we don’t have to handle the effects on the back end.”
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
© 2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
