District Program Monitoring Report-Update 2018-19 Recruitment and Retention Pilot Date: December 17, 2019 Background and brief overview. 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. In addition, most districts in the metro area 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 hardto-fill roles, which for 2018-19 was $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. 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 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 are assigned to 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 hardest to fill teaching content areas based on vacancies at the start of the 17-18 school year. Given 1 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. The APS Board of Education received an initial District Monitoring Report in February 2019 with preliminary information on the pilot. The information and tables in this report have been updated and capture final data and information available at the end of the 2018-19 school year, which was the pilot year. Section 1: Program Status. This was a one-time pilot program that was implemented for the 2018-19 school year. Following the results of the arbitration regarding the Aurora Education Association’s (AEA) grievance and per the Board’s direction at its January 22, 2019 meeting, any future long term incentive program would be negotiated between the district and the association. Information related to the pilot has been used to inform APS and AEA’s collaborative development of a new salary schedule. Section 2: Budget. Table 1 reflects the number of stipends paid as part of the pilot program for the 18-19 school year. Table 1. Cost of pilot incentive program. Category Amount Stipends for Early Commitments $825,000 Stipends for New Hires and Returning Staff Members who did not Commit early $292,500 Total $1,117,500 Section 3: Implementation Progress. Since the previous District Monitoring Report, there has been no further implementation of this pilot program. Section 4: Demographics. Table 2 and Table 3 describe those impacted by the recruitment and retention incentive. 2 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 2. Participation of targeted Special Service Provider roles in pilot incentive. # of existing APS employees eligible for initial incentive # 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 Nurses 47 41 (87%) 0 2 Occupational Therapists 17 16 (94%) 0 5 School Psychologists 48 38 (79%) 0 7 Speech Language Pathologists 72 46 (64%) 0 16 SSP Subtotal 184 141 (77%) 0 30 Role 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, Columbia Middle School, North Middle School, Aurora West College Preparatory Academy, Aurora Central High School, and Vista Peak Preparatory. 3 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 3. Participation of targeted teaching role in identified schools in pilot incentive. # of existing APS employees eligible for initial incentive # 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 Math 56 38 (68%) 0 17 Science 62 38 (61%) 0 16 Special Education 112 58 (52%) 25 29 Teaching Role Subtotal 230 134 (58%) 25 62 Subject Section 5: Timeline. All activities relating to the implementation of this pilot were carried out as described above. Since the pilot has ended there are no upcoming benchmarks. Section 6: Goals. 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. Table 4 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 at the end of the school year. Of the 20 schools at which teachers of math, science, and special education received incentives, nine schools or 45% saw improved turnover rates, nine schools or 45% saw worse turnover rates, and two schools or 10% had consistent turnover rates. The overall turnover rate for these schools improved from 47% to 36%. 4 Table 4. Comparison of turnover rates by school for targeted teaching roles: math, science, and special education at targeted schools. Targeted Schools Lyn Knoll Elementary School 3 year avg. Turnover for math, science, and special education combined Turnover between 17-18 and 18-19 for math, science, and special education combined 67% 50% Sixth Avenue Elementary School 56% Tollgate Elementary School 53% 67% 25% AWCPA - Aurora West College Prep Academy 51% Paris Elementary School 50% 100% Vaughn Elementary School 50% 100% Clyde Miller K-8 School 48% 67% Aurora Hills Middle School 47% 50% North Middle School Health Sciences & Technology Campus 28% 50% 47% Meadowood Child Development Center 47% Aurora Central High School 47% 35% Wheeling Elementary School 42% 0% Boston K-8 School 38% 60% Dalton Elementary School 33% 33% Iowa Elementary School 33% 0% 33% Jamaica Child Development Center 33% Jewell Elementary School 33% 33% 5 50% Targeted Schools 3 year avg. Turnover for math, science, and special education combined Turnover between 17-18 and 18-19 for math, science, and special education combined Kenton Elementary School 33% 40% Vista PEAK Preparatory 31% 18% Columbia Middle School 29% 26% Combined Turnover Rate for identified schools 47% 36% 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, ten of the twenty schools saw improved turnover rates and one school had the same turnover rate, while nine schools had higher turnover rates. ● Of the eight secondary schools that were identified for the incentive, five (63%) saw improvement in the turnover rate of math teachers with one staying steady, while only three (38%) saw improvement in the turnover rate for science teachers For Special Service Provider roles, there were significantly improved retention rates between the 17-18 and 18-19 school year for Nurses and School Psychologists, while for Occupational Therapists and Speech Language Pathologists the rates were the same. (See Table 5.) Table 5. Retention Rates for SSP roles participating in the pilot.1 Between 15-16 and 16-17 Between 16-17 and 17-18 Between 17-18 and 18192 Nurses 75% 90% 100% (+10 ppts.) Occupational Therapists 75% 90% 90% (no change) 1 This table has been updated to reflect retention data for the past three years, including the final retention data for between 17-18 and 18-19, when the recruitment and retention incentive was offered. Note the February 2018 initial DMR included a similar table, but had the years mislabeled and thus they included retention data from the previous three years 14-15 to 15-16; 15-16 to 16-17; and 16-17 to 17-18. 6 School Psychologists 86% 80 98% (+18 ppts.) Speech Language Pathologists 58% 87% 87% (no change) As shown in Table 6, for Occupational Therapists, School Psychologists, Speech Language Pathologists, there was also a decline in Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) SSP positions and the percentage of these roles hired through contracts. However, there was an increase in the number of Nurses hired through contracts. In 2018-19, APS estimates it spent approximately $165,000 less on contracted services across these four roles compared to 2017-2018. This would represent a net savings of approximately $11,000, assuming any previously contracted FTE became direct district hires, plus additional cost savings from other expenses incurred as a result of reduced turnover. Table 6. APS Contracted SSP FTE in 17-18 and 18-19 (not including leave coverage) 17-18 18-19 # of FTE (% of FTE hired through contracts) # of FTE (% of FTE hired through contracts) Speech Language Pathologists 16.6 (25%) 16.4 (21%) OT 5.4 (24%) 4 (16%) School Psychologists 4 (8.5%) 2 (4.6%) 1 (2%) 3 (6%) Nurses Section 7: Future Updates. Given that this was a one-time pilot that took place during the 2018-19 school year, this is the final district monitoring report on this pilot and no further updates will be provided. 7