Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises, the CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools, sat down with WMAR-2 News today and reported good news on the staffing situation in the district.
She tells us that, as of the information from principals on Friday, August 19th, that the district is only looking to fill 225 teaching positions.
"For an average, that's about one to two vacancies per school if we were taking that on an average. But what we also know is that that's highly variable across schools," says Santelises.
This is down from the last reported number of 645 in late July.
She says, they usually expect to be hiring about 600 teachers each summer, but this year, they were attempting to fill an additional 600 newly created positions.
"What we're experiencing is the after effect of the Kirwan dollars allowing principals to create an additional 600 positions in schools as a result of additional funding," says Santelises. "So schools that did not have, for example, a math coach previously, might now be able to afford one."
While the City School system didn't hire 400 teachers in the last few weeks, between the staff that they did hire and the "creative solutions" they've brought the number of "instructionally critical positions" they're looking to fill down to around 225.
This includes a mix of increasing class sizes and looking for more support staff to assist with classes.
Dr. Santelises also emphasized that not all schools in the City are impacted equally, and that some will be fully staffed for the first day of school on August 29th.
The school district will continue to hire after that point, following a few week break to make sure everyone they've already hired has been onboarded.
