BELL COUNTY, Texas — Temple ISD and Belton ISD both held job fairs Wednesday as they try to prepare for the new school year. 6 News spoke to the districts about how many teachers they need and if they are considering more security next year.
Temple ISD is looking to hire 50 additional teachers. For context, the district said they have nearly 600 teachers on staff at this time.
Temple ISD Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Donna Ward said math teachers, in particular, are still in high demand.
"I would say the hardest areas to find are math and special education at our secondary levels just because those are a more specialized certification," Ward said.
Ward said Temple ISD had recently increased pay to stay competitive. Pay was previously $50,900 a year and Ward said Temple ISD had increased it to $52,500. Ward said the pay increase would be reflected for higher pay scales as well.
Ward also said TISD pays a portion of employee health benefits and that the cost of most of those plans had actually decreased from last year.
Belton ISD is working to hire 60 additional teachers. For context, the district has a total of 930 teachers on staff right now. Communications Director Jennifer Baily said there are several subjects that they are always hiring for.
"We are always on the hunt for science teachers, for math teachers, and for special education teachers," Baily said.
A first year teacher at Belton ISD currently makes $51,400 a year, though Baily said the district could raise that amount over the summer. Baily said the school also offers at least one health care plan that "is zero cost to the employee."
She said the school district also needed cafeteria staff and other support services.
6 News also asked both school districts if they would be hiring additional security staff. Ward said Temple ISD was exploring that possibility.
"We have SRO's and security officers in our district. We are talking about adding additional security officers next year. It's been worked into our budget. but nothing is final until the board approves the budget," Ward said.
Ward told 6 News she couldn't yet disclose exactly how many more security officers the district was considering as they were waiting for board approval.
She said the majority of security officers currently serve Temple High School.
Belton ISD said they currently have "14 security staff who are split amongst the two high schools, a coordinator of emergency preparedness on staff, as well as a safety coordinator on staff."
Baily said Belton ISD is not hiring additional security staff at this time, but they have been speaking to local law enforcement about additional school resource officers for the last several months.
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