Indian Prairie School District 204 has hired 139 new educators for the 2024-25 school year, the vast majority of which are early in their careers.
That’s according to a presentation given by Chief Human Resources Officer Carey Beth Harry to the district’s Board of Education at a meeting on Monday. She said the district is filling positions that have historically been difficult to fill, such as teachers assistants, and that the district has high rates of employee retention.
“There’s much to celebrate about our most recent recruiting season,” she said.
Of the newly-hired staff, around 55% are at the elementary school level, around 24% are at the middle school level and around 17% are at the high school level, according to Harry’s presentation. The rest are special education staff not tied to any specific school level, she said.
Roughly 72% of the staff hired for the new school year were hired before July, which shows that the district was out recruiting well before the start of the summer season, Harry said.
Later in the presentation, she said the district hired over 60% of its new educators from universities the district visited.
Over 70% of the teachers hired this year had between zero and three years of experience, and around 65% of the new hires had just a bachelor’s degree, which shows that the district’s human resources staff are “very mindful of the district’s budget” when hiring new positions, she said.
Typically, school districts pay teachers with more experience and more advanced degrees a higher salary than those with less experience and fewer degrees.
Around 18% of the district’s newly-hired staff are people of color, according to Harry’s presentation. She said that is up 4% from last year’s group of new hires.
The district is not giving preferential treatment to any group of people, Harry said in response to a question by School Board member Justin Karubas. Instead, the district looks to hire the best and most qualified candidates and is an equal opportunity employer, she said.
However, the district is intentionally looking to make its hiring pool more diverse, including visiting out-of-state job fairs of historically Black colleges and universities, according to Harry. She said the district is beginning to be recognized at these out-of-state job fairs, with people seeking them out instead of just happening upon their table.
Karubas also pointed out that the district’s “Grow Your Own Teachers” program, which gives students at the middle and high school level a look into teaching as a profession, will also help to make the district more diverse as the district itself gets more diverse.
The program’s students could look to go into the education field and potentially return to the district as teachers themselves, which would lead to the district’s teachers reflecting the diversity of its student body, Karubas said.
The “Grow Your Own Teachers” program is entering its fourth year and has grown from 48 students in the 2020-21 school year to 120 students in the 2023-24 school year, Harry’s presentation showed.
At the end of last year, 39 high school seniors committed to pursuing the field of education at their chosen college or university, she said.
Indian Prairie School District is already seeing its students return as teachers, according to Harry. She said around 18% of the newly-hired teachers graduated from the district.
That is up from last year’s new hires, of which about 16% were district alumni, Harry said during her presentation. Over 220 licensed teachers at the district also graduated from the district, she said.
Board President Laurie Donahue said the high number of former Indian Prairie students coming back to the district as teachers shows that the district is “doing a lot of really good things, because people wouldn’t want to come back to somewhere where they had a bad experience or weren’t supported and nurtured.”
The district’s high retention rates also show that the district is doing good things, Donahue said. According to Harry’s presentation, the district had an overall retention rate of roughly 94%, with teachers having an even higher percentage at around 95%.
The district’s teacher retention rate is slightly higher than last year and is almost five percentage points higher than the state average, her presentation showed.
Licensed teachers make up 66% of the district’s total staff, according to Harry. She said the next largest group, at 26% of the district’s total staff, are the “classified” staff members, which are made up of assistants and secretaries.
“Non-bargaining” positions, which are made up of special education staff, human resources, business staff and other district-level positions, make up 6% of the district’s total staff population, Harry said. District administration makes up only 2% of the district’s total staff, which is “significantly less” than comparable districts, she said.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
