Tuscaloosa City Schools needs more teachers

Tuscaloosa City Schools serves more than 10,000 students on a daily basis.

Currently, the system is more than 30 teachers short ahead of school starting back in the fall.

On Tuesday, the Tuscaloosa City School Board held a special called meeting addressing this shortfall and what they’re doing about it.

“We have job opportunities when our federal funds came in.  We had more job opportunities for our teachers within our school system,” said Tuscaloosa City Schools Director of Personnel Deron Cameron.

Cameron said in 2020, the system didn’t have issues with teacher shortages.

Statewide, teachers and public school employees are retiring at the highest levels seen in nearly a decade.

According to The Associated Press, 3,515 employees retired in the most recent period tracked, which is the most since the 2010-2011 school year.

“These are resignations so they took other job opportunities,” Cameron said. “We’ve got some who are moving out of the area, so it’s kind of a mix between the resignations and others that have job opportunities within our school system.”

The school system is hosting a virtual teacher candidate open house on Thursday, July 1 at 2 p.m.

“We want to encourage those who have a degree and don’t know what they want to do with that degree, we’re going to lead them through the process.  We’re also going to point them to some vacancies we have in our schools,” said Cameron.

TCS offers a laptop to support teaching responsibilities, teacher mentoring programs, benefits packages, personal well-being services and professional development opportunities.

If you have a teaching degree and want to participate in the virtual open house, you can learn more information right here.