Camden school district is offering a $10K signing bonus to recruit new teachers

For the third straight year, the Camden school district is offering a $10K signing bonus to attract new teachers for the upcoming school year.

Like other districts in the region, Camden is scrambling to fill vacancies in the wake of a national teacher shortage. It projects more than 100 openings for the 2024-25 school year, said Tyra Jenkins, manager of recruitment and staffing.

The bonus will be offered to new hires in critical areas — special education, math, science, world languages, health and physical education, and ESL, Jenkins said.

“Since there is a teacher shortage we are trying to do something different,” Jenkins said Monday. “We’re just trying to attract the best and brightest for our students.”

Jenkins believes the bonus will give the district a hiring edge. Philadelphia offers a $2,500 bonus for teachers who agree to work in schools that have traditionally had difficulty filling positions.

» READ MORE: Camden schools are offering $10K signing bonus to attract new teachers. ‘This is where we are,’ says the superintendent.

For the past few years, teachers have been leaving at alarming rates, and enrollment in teaching programs has declined. In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, lawmakers have taken steps to ease certificate requirements to get more teachers in the classroom and retain veteran educators.

But New Jersey has not seen a large uptick in districts offering bonuses, according to the New Jersey School Boards Association. The New Jersey Education Association has called bonuses a “Band-Aid” on a bigger problem: teacher salaries too low to attract recruits.

Camden plans to hold a job fair on Tuesday at Camden High from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. to recruit for positions, including teachers, support staff, custodians, and security officers. About 200 people have registered, and on-site interviews have been scheduled with some, Jenkins said.

”In a perfect world, we would fill every position,” Jenkins said.

Camden, which has about 5,900 students in its traditional public schools, began offering the signing bonus as a perk in 2023. Superintendent Katrina McCombs said at the time, “This is where we are.”

The district gave out $20,000 in bonuses the first year, and about $40,000 last year, officials said. The bonus is paid over two years in installments.

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Jenkins said the district still has about 30 vacancies for the current school year. The district has used substitute teachers or asked teachers to cover two classes to fill the gaps.

In 2022, the district launched a pilot program in Puerto Rico to fill bilingual and ESL positions, where a certified teacher is required. About 54% of its students are Latino and 14% are English-language learners. McCombs said at the time that the district was “desperate” and wanted to try a different approach.

The district said it would assist candidates with their applications and temporary visas to work in the United States and would cover fees and application costs, roughly $2,500 per person.

District spokesperson Sheena Yera said the program has been put on hold. It was not immediately known if the program yielded any hires.

Staff writer Kristen A. Graham contributed to to this article.