HOUSTON — Houston ISD will start the upcoming school year on Monday with a few dozen teacher vacancies. But district leaders say it's a major improvement compared to the thousands of openings they started the summer with.
Uncertified teachers will help fill the gap for the 47 unfilled positions, including 12 special education teachers.
"I think this year somewhere around 850 uncertified teachers were hired. they have to enter a program to get certification over two years. many of those are teacher apprentices that were moved from teacher apprentice to the classrooms," Superintendent Mike Miles said.
He said HISD had over 10,000 vacancies when the last school year ended.
The district held multiple job fairs throughout the summer but the challenge has been filling special certified positions like ROTC and career tech.
Miles said some applicants at the job fairs didn't meet the district's standards or lacked the right background.
It's not clear how many of the unfilled positions were impacted by job eliminations at the end of last year.