Bonuses offered for teachers in special education

Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2004 | 9:40 a.m.

Qualified teachers who left special education programs for general classroom assignments are being offered raises and bonuses to return.

While special education has long topped the district's list of hard-to-fill positions, the district started the 2004-05 academic year in August with 83 vacancies for teachers in "self-contained" classrooms -- reserved for students with the most severe disabilities.

The Clark County School Board last month approved an incentive plan that would bump teachers as much as three steps on the pay scale and also provide signing bonuses of $1,000.

To qualify, teachers must already possess the state-mandated special education license. Each teacher who pursues a master's degree in special education with an autism endorsement will receive tuition subsidies.

The district has nearly 300 teachers with the required credentials to teach such students but who are assigned to general classrooms, George Ann Rice, associate superintendent of human resources, said Monday. This does not include teachers in other high-vacancy specialities such as mathematics, Rice said.

Teachers who take advantage of the incentives would be required to stay in their new assignments for a minimum of three years.

But teachers already working in special education were excluded from the incentive plane that would have raised their salaries three steps next year. Instead, teachers who are currently assigned to autism or self-contained classrooms -- and continue in those positions -- will have their pay jump two steps in 2006-07, Rice said.

To advance all of the qualified special education teachers three steps for the 2005-06 academic year would cost $983,000, Rice said.

"Would the district like to give these incentives not only for the people coming back in but for for the people who have stayed in those positions? Of course we would," Rice said. "But there's limited money and we have to stretch it. We're trying to recognize their service and loyalty but we can't do it right now. So we'll do it as soon as we can."

Mary Ella Holloway, president of the Clark County Education Association, said she heard from a handful of special education teachers who were unhappy with the origina plan, which made no provisions for those already in the self-contained classrooms.

"If you're going to give incentives because someone comes into a program, people who have stuck with it and are already there should have incentives also, that's only fair," Holloway said.

The union agreed with district officials that the budget could not be stretched far enough this year to offer existing special education teachers a pay hike and negotiated the pay hike for the 2006-07 academic year, Holloway said.

The amount of interest teachers have shown in taking advantage of the district's offer is "telling," Holloway said.

"Everybody realizes this is a high-need area and the district has to do whatever it can to fill those positions," Holloway said.

More than 100 people showed up for an informational meeting last week and 66 teachers have already qualified to return to special education assignments, Rice said. Teachers will make the switch as soon as qualified replacements can be hired to take over their general classroom assignments.

The cost of the incentive plan won't be known until teachers actually take over the new assignments. For a teacher with three years experience and 16 credits toward a master's degree, a jump of three steps on the salary scale would mean a salary of $36,672, a pay hike of nearly $4,000.