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Polk County School District looks to Puerto Rico for help as teaching shortages continue
Ken Suarez reports
BARTOW, Fla. - The Polk County School District will go to Puerto Rico next month to recruit new teachers and other staffers.
In recent years, Polk County schools have recruited talent from Puerto Rico virtually, but now, they are upping the ante. The district will send a group of employees with the district to do face-to-face interviews and fast track new hires.
"We’ll get as much done on-site as we can," said Caroline Giroux, the Polk County schools recruitment coordinator.
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The district is hoping to fill as many of the 200 vacant teacher jobs as possible, and they will be offering a starting salary of $47,500 a year.
They will also be looking for other employees, like IT experts, custodians, and lunchroom personnel. Those positions start at $15 an hour or more.
Like school districts in other regions, Polk County recruits teachers from around the world. However, it is targeting Puerto Ricans in particular, because the county’s Hispanic population is exploding.
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"Right now, you have muchos Puertorriquenos [many Puerto Ricans] in this county, but you also have a growth in the number of South Americans, like Venezuelans. You also have Columbians," said Ana Rivera, the founder of the Puerto Rican Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
Recruiters will be trying to convince people to sign on the dotted line by underscoring that Polk County is within an hour of the beaches and Orlando attractions.
They'll also be pushing the fact that Polk County has a reasonable amount of available housing and one out of four people in the county is now Hispanic.