Bonuses OK’d As Teacher Crunch Continues

By NORA GRACE-FLOOD | New Haven Independent

New hires will receive signing bonuses through the end of January in the public school district’s latest effort to recruit more teachers, paraprofessionals, social workers, and safety officers — amid an ongoing flood of staff resignations and publicly vented concerns about substandard working conditions in the city’s schools.

The Board of Education voted unanimously during an online Tuesday night meeting to use federal pandemic-relief money to fund a tiered signing bonus plan. 

The ed board members also heard from a slew of local public school teachers who spoke up during the public input section of the meeting about how the ongoing teacher shortage is the result of low wages, poor benefits, disrespect from leadership and extraordinarily intensive workloads compared to other nearby municipal school districts. Those teachers warned that many more of their colleagues will likely leave the district if a new union contract doesn’t guarantee higher salaries and better benefits. (See below for more on teacher testimony at Tuesday’s meeting, as well as for the superintendent’s response.)

The now-approved bonus plan, meanwhile, offers individuals taking on hard-to-fill school district jobs — such as math teachers, special education professionals, school psychologists, and world language teachers — a maximum of $5,000 extra. 

New school social workers and elementary teachers, who fall into a so-called ​“high vacancy” category, will receive an extra $2,500 signing bonus, while new paraprofessionals will receive $1,250 each.

All other newly hired teachers across general subjects like art, dance and history will get the minimum signing bonus of $1,000 each.