Cedar Rapids schools offering up to $5k in hiring bonuses for teachers

CEDAR RAPIDS — Cedar Rapids schools is offering to pay new teachers up to $5,000 in hiring incentives over the next three years in an effort to fill vacancies.

As of Monday, there are 67 open positions — 5.5 percent of certified teaching staff — in the district, according information shared at a school board work session Monday night. The majority of those open positions — 31 — are in the district’s elementary schools, and 13 are special education teaching positions.

Superintendent Tawana Grover said filling all of these positions by the start of new teacher orientation on Aug. 17, is a “high priority.”

“There is a sense of urgency,” Grover said. “We believe our staff deserve our schools to be fully staffed and our students deserve a highly qualified teacher in every classroom.”

There are about 16,000 students across 32 schools in the Cedar Rapids Community School District.

Craig Barnum, Cedar Rapids schools executive director of digital literacy and information technology, said at least 10 of these positions may be filled by the end of this week.

To help alleviate the teacher shortage, the district is offering a $1,500 bonus over two years to any current employees who refer a teacher to the district and that person stays for two years.

They also are paying a $5,000 hiring bonus for new special education teachers to the district who stay for three years, and a bonus of $3,000 for newly hired Black, Indigenous or people of color who stay for three years. These bonuses will paid over a three-year period.

Another $20,000 will be allocated to fund support services for staff of color. “When people of color come to our district, they don’t stay,” Grover said.

District officials are considering what these support services could look like, including a mentoring program. Black teachers are only 2.2 percent of the overall teaching staff in the district. And teachers of color are only 3 percent of the teachers in the district.

The incentives will be funded by the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund — federal relief dollars provided during the pandemic. The third year of the bonus for special education teachers will come from the special education fund, Grover said. Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds expire September 2024.

In a survey sent to staff — with 882 people responding — 64 percent agreed the district should provide incentives and a recruitment plan to hire and retain staff who are Black, Indigenous and people of color. Thirty eight percent said they knew of at least one teacher they would talk to about teaching in the district.

The district also is offering a 50 percent child care discount for employees who use Champions before- and after-school child care, Cedar Rapids schools’ child care provider. Only 12 percent of survey respondents said they would be interested in this benefit.

Grover said that with that feedback, district officials will consider what other benefits they could provide employees such as pet insurance or a housing bonus.

The incentives are a “first step” in improving recruiting and retention across the district, Grover said.

Currently, the district is posting job openings on Teach Iowa and other job boards including Indeed and LinkedIn. They attend some college career fairs — most in Iowa — and try to hire student teachers.

School board members expressed support for the incentive program.

“We know there is a teacher shortage,” school board member Nancy Humbles said. “Whatever we can do to recruit and retain our teachers — I like the beginning of this plan.”

School board member Cindy Garlock said she’s glad there was collaboration between school district administrators and the Cedar Rapids Education Association — the local teachers’ union — on the plan.

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