District Program Monitoring Report
2018-19 Recruitment and Retention Pilot
Date: February 19, 2019
Section 1: Brief Overview.
In January 2018, as part of its approval of a readopted 2017-18 budget, the Aurora Public
Schools (APS) Board of Education approved using a portion of additional one-time dollars the
district would receive to pilot incentives to recruit and retain staff in some of the district’s
hardest to fill positions.
In February 2018, APS began a one-year pilot incentive program to recruit and retain staff in
some of its hardest to fill positions, as part of the district’s larger Human Capital Strategy and
focus on strengthening recruitment and retention. Specifically, the pilot program offered staff
members, new and returning, who filled one of the eligible roles at targeted schools a one-time
incentive for committing to APS. The pilot targeted the incentive to the following groups:
● Hard-to-Fill Special Service Provider Roles. The incentive was targeted to special
service provider roles that had the greatest number of vacancies and/or were ultimately
filled by third party contractors. Given this methodology, the incentives were targeted to
the following roles: speech language pathologists, school psychologists, occupational
therapists, and nurses. They were available to all individuals in these roles, since the
hiring of these roles occurs at the district level and then individuals in these roles are
placed in specific buildings after hiring.
● Hard-to-Fill Teaching Roles at Designated Schools. The incentive was targeted toward
the district’s hardest to fill teaching content areas in schools by identifying the district’s
hardest to fill teaching content areas based on vacancies at the start of the 17-18 school
year. Given this methodology, the incentives were targeted to the following roles: special
education teachers, secondary (6th-12th grade) math teachers and secondary science
teachers. For the purposes of piloting these incentives, these role specific incentives were
targeted toward schools that had experienced above average turnover rates over multiple
years (above 29%).
For both of these targeted groups, current APS staff were eligible for a $3000 stipend if they
committed to return to APS for the 18-19 school year by April 6, 2018. New to APS staff, as
well as any staff who ultimately returned to these roles but did not commit by the above date,
were eligible for a $2500 stipend.
Section 2. Key evidence for Implementation.
Locally and nationally, there are particular content areas and support functions that school
systems struggle to fill year after year. In APS and consistent with national trends, this means
positions, such as those in special education and secondary math and science, have limited
candidate pools and at times remain unfilled into the school year as learning and support for
students has already begun. For special service provider roles of school psychologists, nurses,
speech language pathologists, and occupational therapists, to fill these roles, APS has had to
contract with third-party organizations, at a greater cost, to ensure APS has the providers
necessary to meet student needs.
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 In addition, prior to the pilot, APS was one of the few districts in the metro area that did not
provide some form of differentiated pay or incentive for hard to fill subject areas. For example,
Cherry Creek School District gives portability credit for up to 10 years of experience for those in
designated “hard to fill” roles, as compared to their standard 5 year maximum. Denver Public
Schools offers an annual incentive for designated hard-to-fill roles, which for 2018-19 is $2,738.
Douglas County School District has differentiated salary schedules for general roles, hard to hire
roles, and specialist roles, with approximately $6,000-$7,000 difference in base salaries between
general and hard to hire roles.
Section 3: Demographics.
By extending incentives for special service providers to nurses, speech language pathologists,
occupational therapists, and school psychologists in all schools, the recruitment and retention
pilot reached all traditional APS schools. Specifically the following table indicates the number of
special service providers that were offered the initial incentive and the numbers that ultimately
received these incentives.
Table 1. Participation of targeted Special Service Provider roles in pilot incentive.
Role

Nurses
Occupational
Therapists
School
Psychologists
Speech
Language
Pathologists
SSP Subtotal

# of
existing
APS
employees
eligible for
initial
incentive
47
17

# of eligible
APS employees
who committed
early and
received $3000
incentive (%)

# of returning
eligible APS
employees who did
not commit early
and received $2,500
incentive

# of new eligible APS
employees who received
$2,500 incentive

41 (87%)
16 (94%)

0
0

2
5

48

38 (79%)

0

7

72

46 (64%)

0

16

184

141 (77%)

0

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As indicated above, the hard-to-fill teaching role incentive was targeted at the hardest to fill
teaching content areas in schools by identifying the district’s hardest to fill teaching content areas
based on vacancies at the start of the 17-18 school year and piloting these role specific incentives
in schools that had experienced above average turnover rates over multiple years (above 29%).
As a result, this incentive targeted special education and secondary math and science teachers at
the following 20 schools: Meadowood Child Development Center (CDC), Jamaica CDC, Dalton
Elementary, Iowa Elementary, Jewell Elementary, Kenton Elementary, Lyn Knoll Elementary,
Sixth Avenue Elementary, Tollgate Elementary, Paris Elementary, Vaughn Elementary,
Wheeling Elementary, Boston Elementary, Clyde Miller P-8, Aurora Hills Middle School,
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 Columbia Middle School, North Middle School, Aurora West College Preparatory Academy,
Aurora Central High School, and Vista Peak Preparatory.
Specifically, the following table indicates the number of teachers that were eligible for the initial
incentive and the numbers that ultimately received these incentives.
Table 2. Participation of targeted teaching role in identified schools in pilot incentive.
Subject

# of existing APS
employees eligible
for initial
incentive

# of eligible APS
employees who
committed early
and received
$3000 incentive
(%)

# of new eligible
APS employees
who received
$2,500 incentive

38 (68%)
38 (61%)
57 (52%)

# of returning
eligible APS
employees who
did not commit
early and
received $2,500
incentive
2
2
25

Math
Science
Special Education

56
62
111

Teaching Role
Subtotal

229

133 (58%)

29

71

17
15
39

Section 4. Fidelity & Outcomes (Evidence of Effectiveness).
As a result of this pilot APS expected to see improved retention rates for the targeted roles, fewer
roles needing to be filled by outside providers, and a stronger pool of external applicants wanting
to teach in APS.
The following table shows the turnover rates of schools that was used to identify schools targeted
for the incentive for teachers of math, science, and special education compared to the turnover
rate for the 18-19 school year, as of October 2018. Of the 20 schools at which teachers of math,
science, and special education received incentives, fourteen schools or 70% saw improved
turnover rates, four schools or 20% saw worse turnover rates, and two schools or 10% had
consistent turnover rates. The overall turnover rate for these schools improved from 47% to 29%.
Final turnover data for the year will be available at the end of this school year.

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 Table 3. Comparison of turnover rates by school for targeted teaching roles: math, science,
and special education at targeted schools.

Targeted Schools
Lyn Knoll Elementary School
Sixth Avenue Elementary
School
Tollgate Elementary School
AWCPA - Aurora West College
Prep Academy
Paris Elementary School
Vaughn Elementary School
Clyde Miller K-8 School
Aurora Hills Middle School

3 year avg. Turnover for math,
science, and special education
combined
67%
56%
53%
51%
50%
50%
48%
47%

North Middle School Health
Sciences & Technology Campus
Meadowood Child Development
Center
Aurora Central High School
Wheeling Elementary School
Boston K-8 School
Dalton Elementary School
Iowa Elementary School
Jamaica Child Development
Center
Jewell Elementary School
Kenton Elementary School
Vista PEAK Preparatory
Columbia Middle School
Combined Turnover Rate for
identified schools

Turnover between 17-18 and
18-191
50%
33%
20%
20%
100%
100%
50%
46%
53%

47%
0%
47%
47%
42%
38%
33%
33%
33%
33%
33%
31%
29%
47%

26%
0%
25%
0%
0%
33%
50%
25%
14%
29%
29%

More specifically, when looking at the turnover rates for individual teaching roles compared to
the three year turnover rate average:
● For special education teaching roles, eleven of the twenty schools saw improved turnover
rates and two schools had the same turnover rate, while seven schools had higher
turnover rates.
● Of the eight secondary schools that were identified for the incentive, seven saw
improvement in the turnover rate of math teachers with one staying steady, while only
four saw improvement in the turnover rate for science teachers
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This is as of October, 2018. Retention rates will be finalized at the end of the 18-19 school year, as they will
fluctuate due to terminations and new hires over the course of the year.

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 For Special Service Provider roles, as of October 2018, there were improved retention rates in
three of the four targeted roles over the previous year, and the highest retention rates in three
years in two of the four areas. The retention rate for school psychologists was down over the
previous two years, despite the incentive. (See Table 4.)
As shown in Table 5, there was also a decline in Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) SSP positions hired
through contracts for Speech Language Pathologists, Nurses, and Psychologists, but the FTE for
contracted hires for Nurses remained the same. Additionally, there was a decline in the
percentage of all Speech Language Pathologists, School Psychologists, and Occupational
Therapist roles that were filled through contracts. In 2018-19, APS anticipates it will spend
approximately $475,000 less on contracted services across these four roles compared to 20172018. This would represent a net savings of approximately $31,000, assuming any previously
contracted FTE became direct district hires. Final costs will be available with the final report in
Fall 2019.
Table 4. Retention Rates for SSP roles participating in the pilot.

Nurses
Occupational
Therapists
School Psychologists
Speech Language
Pathologists

Between 15-16 and
16-17
72%
95%

Between 16-17 and
17-18
75%
75%

Between 17-18 and
18-192
90.2%
89.5%

85.4%

85.7%

80.4%

84.85

58.13%

86.44%

Table 5. APS Contracted SSP FTE in 17-18 and 18-19 (not including leave coverage)
17-18
18-19
# of FTE (% of FTE hired
# of FTE (% of FTE hired through
through contracts)
contracts)
Speech Language
Pathologists
OT
School Psychologists
Nurses

16.6 (25%)

14.6 (20%)

5.4 (24%)

3.9 (15%)

4 (8.5%)

2 (4.6%)

1 (2%)

1 (2%)

2

This is as of October, 2018. Retention rates will be finalized at the end of the 18-19 school year, as they will
fluctuate due to terminations and new hires over the course of the year.

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 Section 5. Program Budget.
The following table reflects the number of stipends paid as part of the pilot program for the 1819 school year.
Table 6. Cost of pilot incentive program.
Category
Stipends for Early Commitments
Stipends for New Hires and Returning
Staff Members who did not Commit early
Total

Amount
$822,000
$325,000
$1,107,000

Section 6. Staffing Requirements.
The pilot program was administered by the Division of Human Resources. No additional staff
was needed to administer the initial pilot.
Section 7. Stakeholder Feedback.
Through a survey of participants in the pilot, the following information was collected about the
impact of the incentives on the decisions of both returning APS staff and new applicants.
When surveying APS teachers who were eligible for the retention incentive to return to their role
for the 18-19 school year:
● 58% were already planning to return to APS prior to learning about the incentive, while
40% were undecided
● 67% indicated that that the incentive was very or extremely influential in their decision to
commit early to return to their school
When surveying APS special service providers who were eligible for the retention incentive to
return to their role for the 18-19 school year:
● 51% were already planning to return to APS prior to learning about the incentive, while
47% were undecided
● 69% indicated that that the incentive was very or extremely influential in their decision to
commit early to return to their school
When surveying new teachers who were eligible for the recruitment incentive for the 18-19
school year:
● 83% were already planning to apply to APS prior to learning about the incentive, while
17% were undecided
● 33% said it was very or extremely influential in seeking employment with APS
When surveying new special service providers who were eligible for the recruitment incentive
for the 18-19 school year:
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 ● 35% were already planning to apply to APS prior to learning about the incentive, while
53% were undecided and 12% were not planning to apply to APS
● 71% said it was very or extremely influential in seeking employment with APS
Across both returning and new eligible APS employees, a significant portion of each have
indicated that a retention incentive will be very or extremely influential in their decision to
commit early to return to APS for the 19-20 school year, with 64% of returning teachers, 70% of
new teachers, 78% of returning SSPs, and 94% of new SSPs.

Section 8. Program Updates & Additional Information.
On March, 15, 2018, the Aurora Education Association filed a grievance indicating that the
district violated the its “contractual obligation to negotiate with the Aurora Education
Association regarding wages (“AEA”) by unilaterally creating a ‘hard-to-fill’ stipend for select
positions within the AEA bargaining unit.” Following the results of the arbitration and per
Board direction at its January 22, 2019 meeting, any future long term incentive program would
be negotiated between the district and the association and any moneys that have already been
paid should not be reimbursed.
Section 9. Future Updates.
There will be an update on the 2018-19 Recruitment and Retention Pilot in fall 2019, once
retention data is finalized at the completion of the 19-20 school year.

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