Recruiters and DISD officials will attend a job fair in Monterrey, Mexico, on Oct. 27-30 to search for potential candidates. The hiring event in Mexico will include information sessions and interviews for teachers from Mexico interested in teaching in DISD.
“We are a very diverse school district,” said Steven Jackson, DISD director of human capital. “So we have students from all around the world. And we want to be able to bring in individuals, teachers and quality teachers who are able to provide our students with just different ways of learning.”
This year, DISD started offering hiring incentives for all teachers to attract more talent to the district, including salaries starting from $60,000 and bonuses ranging from $2,000-$4,000 for mathematics, science and special education teachers. There is also a bonus of up to $5,000 for bilingual teachers.
According to Jackson, higher incentives may be offered for teachers for secondary math, science, Spanish and self-contained classrooms.
DISD officials said they will continue to recruit certified teachers from Mexico offering the same incentives as American teachers in addition to visa sponsorship. This aims to minimize the impact of teacher shortages in 2023-24.
“We feel that it's very important to bring individuals from around the world to be able to provide opportunities for them to learn from our great teachers in Dallas ISD and vice versa for them to be able to bring some of their expertise from their home country,” Jackson said.
The international recruitment will not only help fill vacant positions, but also address the needs of their students, many of whom are Latino and bilingual, according to Jackson. The district's Black and Latino Male Resident Teacher Program aims to add more diverse staff to match the student body.
“We know that we have a high percentage of Latino and African American students in our school system, and we want to make sure that they have individuals who look like them to be able to teach them,” Jackson said. “We know that statistics have shown that students who have someone who looks like them in the classroom are more likely to graduate from high school and be successful in their matriculation to college.”
More information on hiring events and programs for DISD is available here. Those interested in applying for a certified teaching position can do so here.
