Georgetown County Schools looking to fill teacher vacancies

GEORGETOWN COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) - Students in the Georgetown County School District are back in the classroom and officials say they are relieved to have filled most of their vacancies.

Doug Jenkins, Executive Director for Human Resources, says they had an interesting recruiting season. With 628 teacher positions, only four spots are vacant.

Jenkins says given their location and competitive teacher salaries they were able to pique the interest of many.

Georgetown County School District teacher paychecks were more than their northern neighbor, Horry County, which hasn’t happened in a while. They are also right under the Charleston County School District by $500.

GCSD’s board and administrative staff have focused on maintaining smaller class sizes to appeal to more teachers.

Jenkins says the art of teaching is still available in Georgetown County. This is because the school district uses pacing guides instead of a script. Teachers are given the freedom to educate their class as long as they cover the standards within the year.

Although the district doesn’t have many vacancies to fill, it would like to be fully staffed.

“This will be the first year that we potentially may not have all vacancies filled. With that being stated we do have contingency plans with certified long-term subs that we can put in those positions,” Jenkins says.

If worse comes to worst, they will look at bringing back retirees for a few weeks until they find a replacement.

Jenkins says they will only consider this contingency plan by the 10th day of school to gauge how many students are enrolled and how many teachers they need.

Georgetown County School District doesn’t have any bus driver vacancies, all 70 positions are full. Officials also say the starting pay for drivers is $15 dollars an hour which has never happened before, and they are proud of that achievement.