The Tulsa Public Schools will open the school year on Monday with a teacher in every classroom. Now, you may be saying "well duh". That, however, was not a given earlier this summer. Oklahoma's low pay for teachers has led to a statewide teacher shortage and Tulsa was facing nearly 300 teacher openings.
Superintendent Deborah Gist announced the Tulsa Public Schools will open with a teacher in every classroom on the first day of school, Aug. 22, 2016. For the second year in a row, the district was successful in its efforts to ensure that every child has a qualified teacher in every classroom when school opens next week – in spite of the ongoing teacher shortage in Oklahoma.
“Every student in Tulsa deserves nothing less than a quality teacher in her classroom from the first day of school on,” said Gist. “Our team was tireless in their efforts to hire and place great educators into our schools and classrooms. This was truly a collaborative effort among everyone on our team, and they worked tirelessly to fill every teacher vacancy.”
School leaders and Talent Management staff worked together throughout the summer months to identify strong candidates for the district’s vacant teaching positions. This year, Tulsa Public Schools had about 286 vacancies to fill, compared with 499 the previous year. The district currently has about 2,800 certified teaching positions.