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District updates hiring, retention strategies amid statewide teacher shortages
Summary
District 100 human resources staff reported demographic hiring trends, hard‑to‑fill positions, and a suite of recruitment and retention strategies including partnerships, student‑teacher placements and a mentorship program.
Berwyn South School District 100 presented a districtwide update on recruiting, hiring and retention on Tuesday, outlining demographic trends among staff, a set of hard‑to‑fill positions and a multi‑pronged recruitment strategy.
Human resources staff described long‑term goals to hire candidates who reflect the student population and to retain employees through coaching, onboarding and mentoring. The presentation said the share of teachers identifying as white decreased from about 91% in 2017 to 76% in 2025, while the district saw an increase in teachers identifying as Hispanic of about 13 percentage points over that period. The applicant pool for current openings is described as roughly 45% Hispanic, 34% white and 7% Black.
Nut graf: District officials framed the work as a response to a statewide and national teacher shortage and presented a bundle of tactics — job postings on diverse platforms, partnerships with Golden Apple and nearby universities, student‑teacher pipelines, alternative‑licensure pathways, job fairs and internal promotion opportunities — rather than a single solution.
The HR update listed historically hard‑to‑fill roles in the district as special education, related services (for example, speech‑language pathology), dual‑language staff and certain middle‑school endorsements. Officials said the district currently has 10 unfilled positions including two special education roles and two social‑work positions and that leaders have used temporary staffing and resource reallocation to ensure student services continue while vacancies persist.
On retention, the district described a four‑day new‑staff orientation, monthly mentor‑mentee meetings at each school, administrator panels for new assistant principals, coaching embedded in the school day, and end‑of‑year surveys that inform improvements. District staff said internal staffing pipelines — substitutes and paraeducators moving into teaching roles — produced several hires in 2023–24.
Board members asked about implicit‑bias training for interview panels and about bargaining conversations related to wages and working conditions; HR staff said implicit‑bias training is offered districtwide but identified additional interviewer training as an area for growth, and noted that compensation, hours and conditions are subjects for collective bargaining and negotiation.
Ending: Officials asked the board to support continued investment in partnerships and mentoring as the district recruits for bilingual, special‑education and related‑service positions.
