WARNER — Citing a want to deal with Oklahoma’s trainer scarcity, State Superintendent Ryan Walters introduced a pilot program Wednesday afternoon to supply one-time signing bonuses for particular tutorial areas.
Paid for with discretionary funds from the Oklahoma State Division of Schooling, the one-time program would supply $16 million for signing bonuses beginning at $15,000 to educators who decide to educating particular training, pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, first, second or third grade for at the least 5 years in an Oklahoma public faculty with further quantities awarded to academics who agree to show in a rural district or one the place at the least half of its college students are eligible without cost or lowered worth faculty meals.
As a way to qualify, a trainer must both acquired their certification inside the previous three years, have beforehand left the occupation or presently maintain a certification from one other state. Moreover, if a recipient had been to voluntarily go away their faculty district throughout that five-year window, they might be required to repay the varsity district.
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As introduced Wednesday, this system requires sign-on bonuses of as much as $50,000 for academics with greater than 5 years of classroom expertise.
Nonetheless, with purposes topic to evaluate by the Oklahoma State Division of Schooling, the proposal additionally contains language that might cap the overall quantity of signing bonuses awarded per district at $150,000.
“We need to be sure that everybody has a chance to get these funds,” Walters mentioned. “Now we have some giant districts that, with a program like this, they’ve the potential to go in and get all these funds.”
Throughout a gathering Wednesday afternoon at Warner Excessive College with academics and faculty district officers, Walters mentioned the appliance for the sign-on bonus was already dwell via OSDE’s web site.
Moreover, the Oklahoma State Division of Schooling could be launching a privately funded nationwide promoting marketing campaign that includes the signing bonus in an effort to herald extra academics, Walters mentioned. He declined to supply specifics concerning the marketing campaign, together with its funders.
“Now we have an unimaginable state,” Walters mentioned. “We’ve obtained an unimaginable story to inform, so I need to give us each benefit to exit and get these individuals to return to Oklahoma.”
Together with the 58 requests on the consent agenda for Thursday’s Oklahoma State Board of Schooling assembly, greater than 4,000 educators throughout Oklahoma have acquired an emergency educating certificates because the begin of the fiscal yr on July 1, together with 1,086 for elementary training and a further 599 for early childhood training.
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