Tucson districts working to fill 407 teaching vacancies

School may be out for the summer but Tucson-area districts are working to fill 407 vacant teaching jobs.

The Tucson Unified School District makes up nearly half of the open teaching positions, with 186 available, and its officials hope that competitive wages will bring job-seeking educators to a hiring fair Friday, June 3, at Santa Rita High School, 3951 S. Pantano Road, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

While it is unlikely that all of the positions will be filled during the four-hour effort, the district will continue to hire through the summer and into the school year in hopes of reducing the number of classrooms that have to be led by long-term substitute teachers, said TUSD’s talent acquisition director, Janet Rico Uhrig.

The fair is open not only to certified teachers, but to anyone who holds a bachelor’s degree and is interested in going into the teaching profession, she said.

Officials from Pima Community College and Prescott College will be on hand to provide information on the path to becoming a certified teacher. In the meantime, the aspiring educators can teach on a provisional license.

Sunnyside — Tucson’s second-largest school district behind TUSD — has 83 teacher vacancies, followed by Amphitheater Public Schools, with 67.

Both districts will be hiring teachers in the coming days.

Amphi will participate in a Career Expo on Monday, June 6, from 3 to 6 p.m. at the University of Phoenix’s Southern Arizona campus, 300 S. Craycroft Road, suite 100.

Sunnyside will host a job fair of its own on June 15 from 9 a.m. to noon at the district’s headquarters, 2238 E. Ginter Road.

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The Vail School District recently hosted a job fair to hire about 30 teaching positions, nine of which were filled on the spot. As of Wednesday, the district had 17 vacancies.

TUSD has hosted three other job fairs this year, the biggest in March, where about 25 people were hired, Rico Uhrig said.

While the sheer number of vacancies in Tucson Unified is large, 186 positions is a fraction of the district’s approximately 2,500 teaching positions.

It is also fewer than the 210 vacancies that existed at this time last year, Rico Uhrig said.

Rico Uhrig believes the reduction can be attributed to a few factors, including a change in the letters of intent distributed to teachers.

In the past, letters of intent were somewhat ambiguous in terms of where a teacher would be assigned, but this year they are more clear and provide a level of certainty, which makes teachers more comfortable about signing a contract, Rico Uhrig said.

While attrition data is not yet available, Rico Uhrig is also hoping that fewer teachers left the district this year; last year that number topped 400.

“When I first started, I would say that individuals loved working for their schools — and that’s still the case — but I feel we’re moving in a direction where they have district loyalty,” she said.

A starting base salary of $35,000 for new teachers — not including performance pay — and a commitment to annual increases over the last three years is also helping teachers feel more valued, she said.