School may be out for the summer, but the work to prepare for next year year has already begun for Tuscaloosa City Schools. The school system needs to hire 119 employees over the course of the summer, 60 of which are teaching positions, and 17 are bus driver openings. To combat the teacher shortage TCS created a pilot program to pay their student interns this past spring semester. The school system had nine student interns during the pilot semester. Dr. Derron Cameren the Executive Director of Human Resources with Tuscaloosa City Schools said the program was implemented to recruit and retain teachers. It worked so well, the program will continue in the fall.
"We had nine student interns that took advantage of it, they are all teaching with us, they've all been hired with our schools," explained Cameron. 'We are going to do it again, our board voted to do that again, we've increased the amount, last year we had 10 spots, we had nine intern, and we've increased it to 20."
The interns are paid $1,200 a month, and required to work within the school system upon graduation.
Cameron said the the biggest need for Tuscaloosa City Schools, is special education teachers. Next is elementary school positions.
"We have a $5,000 dollar signing bonus for special education teachers. There's such a need within TCS, but within in the state. That's an area of focus for us. Then we've got elementary schools, and a smattering of secondary schools, as well. It runs the gamut."
He said the need for more bus drivers is due to an increase of routes because of a population increase. The sign on bonus for a bus driver is $2,000, and TCS will pay for a CDL.