Teacher Retention Story at Emery Draws Fire: Jobs Numbers Cloudy

The teacher retention story we posted on March 18th has generated many questions, as Emeryville residents feel let down yet again by the School District.  Certain people at Emery Unified felt the story was misleading.  At the Tattler, we take pride in telling both sides of the story and printing retractions when we are wrong or corrections when needed.  Information coming in from Emery independent of listings in a California education jobs resource contradicts it and at this point it's not clear exactly how many teacher positions the District is looking to fill.  The Superintendent refuses to talk with the Tattler.  One thing that IS clear however is the basic charge of the story, that Emery faces a teacher retention crisis, still stands.

First and foremost the Tattler did not make up facts for this story as the critics at the School District imply, for the March 18th story we printed the publicly available numbers from School Board meetings and Edjoin, the education job clearing house in California.  Our search of Edjoin listed 18 job positions representing 35 vacancies at Emery.  When we contacted Superintendent Rubio for a second source, he chose not to respond.  His assistant has now asserted that there are only seven vacancies in the District.  The table below lists the jobs posting.  Either the District is falsely advertising jobs, lying, or both.  The Tattler believes both, as they have five different listings for an Elementary Art position. 

Position being recruited	Comments	Counting as
MS science	Listed with HS position	1
HS science	Listed with MS position	1
Art	5 different listings	1
Elementary 1-3	Ad states 3 openings	3
Elementary 4-6	Ad states 3 openings	3
MS math	Listed with HS position	1
HS math	Listed with MS position	1
HS English	Listed with HS position	1
MS English	Listed with MS position	1
Kindergarten	Ad states 3 openings	3
MS Social Science	Single listing	1
Special Education	Single listing, likely more needed	1
Total	18

Edjoin lists the following for certificated positions in Emery:

"Your search returned  18  job postings for a total of  35  job vacancies. Please click a job title below for detailed information about a specific posting. You can sort your results in both directions (ascending/descending) by clicking on a column header."

It is possible that a majority of the posted positions are anticipated and not actually vacant, yet if the district only has seven vacancies, why have they posted 12 different job titles? 

The question the community most asked as a result of the March 18th story is what do neighboring districts have posted.  Some said the large numbers at Emery are because of the general teacher shortage or this is just how education is today.  Looking at neighboring school district's jobs postings clears this up.

Looking at Edjoin, the neighboring districts to Emery had significantly fewer positions listed.   A search of Edjoin on March 20, 2017 showed only Oakland had more job opportunities posted.  However Oakland has 500 times the number of teachers but only ten times the number of postings but also, Oakland is in a hiring freeze at the moment. (Teacher FTE sourcing comes from the California Department of Education reports in 2015 except for Emery which comes from the Emery Board meeting on March 7, 2017 'fiscal assumptions'.)

District	Teacher Postings	Admin	Teacher FTE	Percent Open
Berkeley	14	1	686	2.0%
Albany	3	0	224	1.3%
Oakland	187	33	2683	7.0%
Piedmont	3	0	179	1.7%
Alameda	8	2	576	1.4%
Emery	18	1	53	34.0%

The Tattler welcomes Superintendent Rubio to provide a written response as to why Emery is advertising positions that are filled.  He has at his fingertips all of the staff that were employed at the start of this school year and all of the teachers that have left or will leave the district at the end of the year.  Based on the personnel actions from the School Board meetings this school year, several teachers have left mid year, Mr Rubio can add to that the number of teachers that have resigned or been given non-reelection letters.  California law requires teachers to be notified by March 15 if they are being let go at the end of the year.  Most districts allow teachers to resign instead of being fired.  Other teachers may choose to give notice later after they have found a new job, so the numbers will not represent everyone, but will tell the story.
We invite Superintendent to take public account of his record on teacher retention by engaging with the community rather than shutting down engagement.