The Elusive Housing Search for Teacher Applicants
May 01, 2024
Appears in May 2024: School Administrator.
Affordable housing offered by school districts brings recruitment benefits that enable incoming staff to live in the community where they work
When three hopeful teachers canceled their signed contracts the summer before the 2022-23 school year because they could not find affordable housing in Bentonville, Ark., superintendent Debbie Jones realized the precarious recruitment situation the school district and community faced.
Bentonville, which is home to Wal-Mart, has seen fast-paced population growth over the past decade, and the housing squeeze has made it challenging for the high-performing school district to fill staff vacancies.
“One of the biggest problems we face in recruitment and retention is really the housing market within our area,” Jones says, noting the purchase price of an average home surged 77 percent over the past five years.
The lack of affordable living spaces for young professionals has driven the 19,000-student Bentonville Public Schools to focus on developing a homegrown solution for early-career teachers. That brought the district to begin working with Northwest Arkansas’ Excellerate Foundation two years ago. The foundation promised to donate at least $8 million toward the construction of two buildings that would house 60 apartments, and 40 staff-dedicated cottages on nine acres of district land, according to Jones.
In mid-February, that affordable housing initiative was dealt a surprising setback by the Bentonville City Council on a rezoning vote, but Jones says she will pursue alternatives. Bentonville is one of a bevy of districts in the U.S. seeking a housing solution for new teachers, as districts face intensifying challenges in attracting capable educators.
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A Closer Look: Different Types of K-12 Affordable Housing
Affordable housing options vary from one school district to the next, ranging from tiny efficiencies to more spacious, multi-family options. The housing benefit serves as a strategic recruitment and retention measure.
- Standalone Studios. Chino Valley Unified School District in Arizona has constructed 10 standalone studio apartments of 375 square feet. The single-story units sit within 10 feet of each other. “It’s a relatively small footprint behind one of our campuses,” superintendent John Scholl says. Tenants enjoy being able to walk to and from class, rather than commuting up to 1½ hours to and from work every day, he adds.
- School-Adjoining One-Bedroom Apartments. Miami-Dade County Public Schools will roll out 10 workforce housing units on two floors at the K-8 Southside Preparatory School. The one-bedroom apartments will be 600 square feet. “The county put up the land, and then we put up our school with the units,” says Raul Perez, Miami-Dade schools’ chief facilities, design and construction officer.
- High-Rise Apartments. Los Angeles Unified School District’s affordable housing sites include a five-story apartment complex known as Selma Community Housing. District employees are given priority for half of the 66 total units, comprising 35 two-bedroom units, 23 three-bedroom units and eight one-bedroom units, according to a case study by the California School Boards Association.
- Garden-Style Apartments. The three-story Williams-Baldwin Teacher Campus is available to full-time teachers employed by Asheville City Schools and the neighboring Buncombe County Schools in North Carolina. The complex comprises two buildings and 24 total units, each of which has two bedrooms and 1,100 square feet. Tenants pay $1,000 to rent each unit.
— Brian Bradley
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