By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — St. Joseph teachers deciding to return to the classroom could earn a nice bonus.
The St. Joseph School Board has approved a teacher incentive program that will provide a $1,000 bonus to teachers informing the district prior to March 1st that they will return.
Superintendent Doug Van Zyl says it will help the district with its planning and hiring process.
“And we also feel like it’s a way to thank our folks that are staying with us by giving them the opportunity to get a little bit of money in their pocket,” Van Zyl tells the KFEQ Hotline. “It’s a thousand dollars, but it’s minus your taxes and withholdings and things you have to have come out of that. So, it’ll still be a nice little sum, but it does give us the opportunity to be a little more proactive in that process.”
The St. Joseph district has more than 700 teachers.
Van Zyl says the district is finding it harder to replace teachers who leave.
Van Zyl says teachers leave the district for a variety of reasons.
“And that’s from retirements to folks that go someplace else, folks that leave the district or go into some other type of job field,” Van Zyl says. “That’s a pretty big chunk of our folks when you consider we’ve got about 700, 750 teachers in our school district.”
The St. Joseph School District received a grant from the state that will pay for the bonuses.
The bonuses aren’t just for teachers. They also will be given to any of the district’s certified personnel who inform the district of their plans to return before the first of next month.
Van Zyl says the district has found that if they can retain new teachers for a couple of years or so, they tend to want to stay.
“Once people get into the system and see what we’re trying to do and what we’re doing to try to meet the needs of our kids and our staff, I think after the first couple of years, they’re like, this isn’t exactly what people make it out to be. It’s better. So, I do think that helps if they’re able to hang around for a couple of years.”