As we plan for next year and continue to make decisions for our district, a priority remains that has been at the forefront of many board decisions and work sessions. In the face of an educational crisis, how do we ensure, to parents and community, that there are highly qualified teachers teaching our students, our most important commodity?
As you know, our district and state are facing a teacher shortage that is currently impacting and will continue to impact our ability to attract and retain teachers. This shortage is being driven nationally and statewide by three different issues: a decline in the number of people who choose to teach as a career (dropped by over a third since 2010); an increase in the number of new teachers who are leaving the profession within their first five years (50% leave); and a growing number of teachers who will be eligible to retire in the next five years. Taken together, these trends are projected to lead to a shortage of 200,000 teachers nationwide by 2025. In Colorado, there were 339 teaching positions that went unfilled last year due to this shortage.
Given these current and projected challenges, the district Board of Education and district leadership believe we must do everything within our ability to attract and retain teachers. This means having hard conversations and making hard choices to ensure a quality education for all students in the Montezuma-Cortez School District. Due to insufficient state funding, everything is on the table and we are looking at all options that we might pursue for increasing teacher and staff retention. However, the issue of attracting and retaining qualified teacher still remains a crisis.
At this time, the board is strongly considering the following options:
A modified calendar to provide a four-day week for students and provide teachers with every other Friday off and half-day workdays every other week compared to a traditional five-day calendar. This is essential for our ability to attract and retain teachers. Over 60% of districts in Colorado have a four-day week and in order for our district to compete, we need to consider this as an option. While we struggled with the idea of a four-day week and its potential impact on students, we have come to believe that having qualified teachers is the most important goal. We believe it is better to have qualified, effective teachers in front of students four days a week than to fail to attract teachers and have the vacancies that so many other districts are facing. The board was mindful of the impact on students and asked us to look at a calendar that would maintain 156 days for students while allowing this flexibility for teachers. This would result in a slightly earlier start date and a later date for the last day of school. The benefit of this calendar would be to keep from having significantly longer days, which are tiring for staff and students. The board has also asked the district to prepare a five-day calendar for comparison and consideration. The district will be posting a proposed calendar with a four-day (156 days) and a traditional five-day calendar on the district website for the public to review and provide feedback.A revised salary schedule that would provide all staff with one additional step next year (in addition to the step that all staff would have received as a typical cost of living). This revised schedule will benefit all staff. In addition, the board is considering adding an additional $3,000 to all steps of the teacher salary schedule. This would make RE-1 more competitive in our region although the proposed new salary schedule would still be below larger regional districts, below the state, and well below national averages. The district is proposing to pay for this through a series of cuts in services including: a modified calendar, restructuring bus routes, restructuring staffing, and reducing budget for capital improvements to buildings. We anticipate a higher-than-expected amount of funding from CDE. These cuts are necessary to restructure the budget in an attempt to make our salaries more competitive, as we explained above.The Board of Education and the district administration are seeking input from staff and parents on these ideas. Information will be posted on the district’s website and Facebook page. We encourage staff, parents and community members to weigh in with their thoughts.
Public comment opportunities will be available on the district website: www.cortez.k12.co.us.
Lori Haukeness is superintendent of Montezuma-Cortez School District RE-1. Reach her at lhaukeness@cortez.k12.co.us.
