Seven teachers find work here

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Friday, Sept. 23, 2005 | 10:07 a.m.

So far seven teachers whose jobs were lost in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina have found work in Clark County schools.

"We hope to hire many more," said Lina Gutierrez, executive director of licensed personnel for the Clark County School District.

All seven of the new recruits are from Louisiana. They include special education teachers and a speech pathologist.

Shortly after the storm, education officials in New Orleans began encouraging teachers to look for new employment. A decision has since been made to keep that city's schools closed for the remainder of the academic year.

The district's first New Orleans hire was Charlotte LaRocca earlier this month, who was greeted by a blizzard of media attention. The six teachers hired since say they want to keep a lower profile, Gutierrez said.

Over the past few weeks district recruiters, looking for both teachers and potential support staff, have visited Jackson, Miss., Shreveport, La., Dallas and Arlington, Texas.

Carol Threats, director of support staff personnel for the district, said two individuals from hurricane-hit communities have already been hired by her department. Another 10 applications are in the pipeline awaiting the results of background checks.

LaRocca was hired by the district after striking up a conversation with the assistant principal at the school where she had just registered her children. When the principal learned that she was an experienced special education teacher, he encouraged her to apply for a job.

That lesson wasn't lost on the district's personnel office, Threats said.

"We sent out a message to all the schools asking them to take note when enrolling children (coming from hurricane-affected areas) and to refer their parents to us and let them know we have employment opportunities," Threats said.

Threats said she wasn't expecting the number of school support employees hired from the pool of new arrivals to grow significantly.

"What we suspect is that the hotels and casinos are getting them," Threats said. "Many of the people who lost their jobs were in the service industry, working for places like Harrah's. They may want to continue in that line of work."

The Clark County Education Association has launched several endeavors to help displaced teachers, including immediate, no-interest loans against the $2,000 signing bonus authorized by the Legislature for new teachers after 30 days employment.

More than 100 teachers have already signed up to have money taken directly out of their paychecks and deposited into a bank account to help hurricane victims, Jasonek said. He declined to say how much money was in the account so far but said the teachers' union would disclose exactly how the funds are eventually spent.

"This isn't a one-time thing, we're talking about providing long-term support to help these folks get settled and established in our community," Jasonek said.