Dr. Kevin Whitaker, Jamestown Public Schools superintendent, is pictured speaking during an April meeting of the Jamestown Public Schools Board of Education. P-J file photo

The continued struggle to recruit teachers has prompted the Jamestown Public Schools Board of Education to approve two incentives – one for student-teachers and one for new teachers.

Dr. Dr. Kevin Whitaker, Jamestown Public Schools superintendent, said the student teacher sign-on bonus will start at $1,000 and go up to $1,500 for student-teachers who are hired in high needs areas: certification special education, world languages and technology. The new teacher sign-on bonus starts at $2,000 and escalates to $3,000 for teachers hired in special education, ENL, world languages and technology.

The student-teacher sign-on bonus requires a three-year commitment while the new teacher sign-on bonus requires a four-year commitment.

“This is a challenge facing school districts across the country, and Jamestown is experiencing it as well. Across the education profession, fewer individuals are choosing to pursue careers in teaching, resulting in a smaller pipeline of future educators. The challenge is especially pronounced in specialized certification areas such as secondary math, science, special education, world languages, and technology where the pool of qualified candidates is often limited. While we continue to attract many talented educators, vacancies in these areas can take longer to fill and, at times, result in more turnover than we’d like. Our hope through these incentives is to attract talent while continuing to partner with colleges and universities across the state to build teacher pipelines and create a workplace where outstanding educators want to build long-term careers,” said Dr. Kevin Whitaker, Jamestown superintendent.

Recruiting staff members has been a recurring discussion for the board in recent years. During a December 2024 meeting, Renee Garrett, district human resources director, told board members the district usually needs to hire between 20 and 25 new teachers each year. At the same time, enrollment in college teacher preparation programs has declined by 53%, which has led the district to try new approaches to both attract teachers and retain existing staff.

The district has begun using different strategies to attract teachers including social media and traditional advertising platforms; job fairs; labor, college, and community partnerships; and compensation. Whitaker said student teaching as well as field placements in Jamestown are also strategies the district uses to attract new teachers.

“We’re fortunate to have a decades-long partnership with SUNY Fredonia, and last year we strengthened that relationship by eliminating a major barrier for students completing their field placement – transportation – through a partnership that provides reliable bus service between Fredonia and our schools,” Whitaker said. “Education hiring goes in ebbs and flows across decades. Sometimes, there are far more candidates than there are jobs, and sometimes there are far more jobs than there are candidates. When it is the latter, our recruitment process is of critical importance. Student teaching is one of the most important ways we build our future workforce because it gives future educators the opportunity to experience our schools, our staff, and our community firsthand. We also play a role in their development through the opportunities they have for staff development and mentoring that we give them. The sign-on bonus is designed to encourage more of those student teachers to begin their careers in Jamestown. We don’t have a specific numerical goal attached to the incentive, but our goal is simple: retain more of the talented educators we’ve already invested in.”

Incentives aren’t a new idea for the district, which approved a recruitment incentive in 2023 to boost its roster of school bus drivers. Under that incentive new hires who remained employed as a bus driver for 60 calendar days received a $250 bonus followed by $500 if they remained employed for 150 days and another $250 if they remained with the district for the entirety of the 2023-24 school year. Current drivers who were employed for the 2022-23 school year and who continued to serve during the 2023-24 school year were eligible for a retention bonus of $1,000 to be split into two payments in September and January 2024.

The incentive approved by the school board isn’t exactly new – Whitaker said it’s an extension of an incentive the district tried only with State University at Fredonia students in 2024-25.

“While we’ll continue to evaluate its effectiveness, we believe investing in future educators is important given the ongoing competition for qualified teachers,” Whitaker said. “We do what works. If the program continues to help us attract and retain talented educators, we’ll certainly consider continuing it as part of our long-term recruitment strategy.”