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Many districts across the country are able to attract and retain qualified SLPs in their urban and rural settings. The following districts face unique challenges and are using successful strategies:
Pittsburgh Public Schools, PA
What are the unique challenges that your district faces in recruiting/retaining qualified personnel?
The unique challenges faced by my district include negative media portrayal, violence and drug trafficking, low test scores, cultural differences, and poverty. We are also concerned about large caseloads, constant blame for lack of achievement, poor attendance and parental involvement, excessive paperwork, and lack of appropriate materials and work space.
What are the strategies your district employs to recruit and retain qualified personnel?
We work with the universities in a variety of ways: speaking to university undergraduate and graduate classes, serving on university committees and boards, serving as adjunct faculty, using graduate students as long-term substitutes, and working to ensure that public school settings are a required placement for all graduate students. We attend career fairs, provide guidance counselors with marketing materials, give preference in hiring to individuals who have interned or substituted in our schools, and waive residency requirements when necessary.
What activities do you feel contribute most to your ability to recruit and retain qualified personnel?
We offer a very competitive salary (above $70,000 after 10 years) and have a comprehensive benefit package including days to care for sick children and parents, longevity and advanced study increments, and opportunities for coaching. All SLPs are supervised and evaluated by an SLP administrator with CCC; program development and problem solving are done with the SLP supervisor. We offer professional development on-site four times per year and opportunities to serve on speech-language committees. We are represented by SLPs on building and negotiating committees through the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers and have 100% of Medicaid money generated by SLP staff put back into the SLP budget to purchase materials, tests, and for national, state, and local professional development. In addition, we offer flexible scheduling, a continuum of service delivery models, opportunities to change assignments, and ongoing mentoring. We have no unfilled positions and have an overall retention rate of 98%.
What advice would you give to others in urban settings with recruitment and retention problems?
I would recommend that you network and make connections with others, while offering creative solutions to problems. Creatively use all of the resources available to you, make an effort to understand the legislative and regulatory process, and be an advocate for children, your program, and the profession. Develop trust with the families you serve and involve SLPs in decision making. Take every opportunity to market your program and the profession.
Contact Information: Ellen Estomin, Eestomin@verizon.net
Minneapolis Public Schools, MN
What are the unique challenges that your district faces in recruiting/ retaining qualified personnel?
There is competition among settings for new graduates, and school caseloads tend to be higher than those in other settings. The trend in public education, in general, is to cut budgets and lay off teachers, which creates bad publicity for schools.
What are the strategies your district employs to recruit and retain qualified personnel?
Our district has a dedicated part-time position for CF supervision and mentoring of new hires and offers additional support through monthly small-group discussions, specific problem solving, and special training for new SLPs in due process procedures, serving English language learners, pre-referral intervention, etc. Our human resources department has delegated the responsibility of hiring all SLPs solely to the SLP department.
What activities do you feel contribute most to your ability to recruit and retain qualified personnel?
Allowing the SLP department to recruit and hire allows us to focus on developing a relationship with the candidate from the beginning. New SLPs receive lane credit for the total number of credits taken for their master’s degree, thus enabling a new SLP to be placed on a Master’s +15 scale, for example. They also receive a lane increase for third-party billing and receive double the amount of supervision recommended by ASHA during their CF. The department engages in workload advocacy following ASHA’s workload guidelines for SLPs in schools. SLPs may choose full-time or part-time work. We have an excellent relationship with the universities offering 20–30 practicum placements per year, and we provide presentations to graduate students at several training programs to entice graduates to work in our school system. Of the 120 ASHA-certified SLPs in our district, we have approximately 5 vacancies per year, or a 95% retention rate.
What advice would you give to others in urban settings with recruitment and retention problems?
Develop a positive relationship with the administration’s hiring department to earn their support and flexibility with respect to hiring. Provide quality support and training to new hires including training for district initiatives and special populations, as well as monthly peer support group meetings. Employ a dedicated SLP to provide CF supervision and mentorship. Work toward establishing and maintaining reasonable workloads and reward SLPs with a salary increase for extra work.
Contact Information: Frank Cirrin, FCirrin@mpls.k12.mn.us
Hamilton County Educational Services Center, OH
What are the unique challenges that your district faces in recruiting/retaining qualified personnel?
The issues we face include high caseloads, lack of support from SLP trained administrators including evaluation of SLP staff by principals and other “untrained” administrators, lack of technology support, and community safety issues.
What are the strategies your district employs to recruit and retain qualified personnel?
Our district hires student teachers, collaborates with university programs to promote school settings, and participates in research projects.
What activities do you feel contribute most to your ability to recruit and retain qualified personnel?
In Ohio, the OMNIE Project was developed to train master’s level SLPs to obtain a teaching license for school-based practice. In addition, we give prospective employees credit for any pediatric experience, hire only MA level SLPs, offer full- and part-time positions with prorated benefits, pay for a portion of professional development, and provide release time to attend. SLP staff receive supervision and mentoring from trained SLPs, are encouraged to develop special skill areas, such as AAC [augmentative and alternative communication], and are given the choice of assignments when available. Our overall retention rate is 98%.
What advice would you give to others in urban settings with recruitment and retention problems?
Offer strong professional development opportunities and offer to supplement the cost, if possible. Match the SLPs’ skills and interests with their assignments, and allow them to have continuity and flexibility in their assignment. Maintain reasonable workloads, and do not force SLPs to “double up” when there is a vacancy. Consider using flexible scheduling such as the 3:1 model, and do not ask SLPs to do additional duties.
Contact Information: Sally Disney, sddiz@cinci.rr.com
El Rancho Unified School District, CA
What are the unique challenges that your district faces in recruiting/retaining qualified personnel?
There is intense competition for the available graduates, the SLP department has no control over salaries, and the surrounding community, which is a lower socioeconomic community with safety issues, may not be as attractive as surrounding middle class communities.
What are the strategies your district employs to recruit and retain qualified personnel?
We advertise online in ASHA and CSHA [California Speech-Language-Hearing Association] publications, recruit at national and state level meetings, hire student teachers, current employees network with colleagues outside of our district, and as a faculty member, I utilize my personal contacts with local university speech-language-hearing departments to recruit qualified applicants.
What activities do you feel contribute most to your ability to recruit and retain qualified personnel?
We take prospective employees on tour to meet current SLPs and site administrators, so that we can show them what a great team we have. We build collegiality within the speech program by responding to individual workload needs and by offering both SLP professional development and the opportunity to meet monthly to hold an in-house speech symposium. We are always involved in a “best practice” project, most recently a Response-to-Intervention (RtI) grant, so that district SLPs have the opportunity to participate in cutting-edge research and practice. We offer student and CF placements and have a loan forgiveness program for those choosing to work in our district.
What advice would you give to others in urban settings with recruitment and retention problems?
Control the factors you can such as workload and work setting. If you make your work settings attractive, people will spread the word and your reputation as a great place to work will spread. This will help not only with recruitment but also retention.
Contact Information: Barbara Moore-Brown, moorebrown@aol.com
Papillion-LaVista School District, NE
What are the unique challenges that your district faces in recruiting/retaining qualified personnel?
There is little variety in our choice of applicants; typically we have only one or two candidates to choose from.
What are the strategies your district employs to recruit and retain qualified personnel?
We send flyers to the area training programs, and put advertisements in the local papers and state professional publications.
What activities do you feel contribute most to your ability to recruit and retain qualified personnel?
We offer an annual stipend for the CCC and are located within a 60-mile radius of two university training programs. In addition, we offer student placements and have a mentoring program for new hires. We’re fortunate because we have a very high retention rate and rarely have to recruit new SLPs.
What advice would you give to others in rural settings with recruitment and retention problems?
I have not had to deal with those issues and therefore have no advice.
Contact Information: Joye McLeod, jmcleod@paplv.esu3.org
Lawton, OK
What are the unique challenges that your district faces in recruiting/retaining qualified personnel?
One of the most significant challenges we face in rural Oklahoma is the fact that there are no university training programs near us. We face stiff competition for qualified personnel from nearby medical settings, and finally there are limited experiences for our new hires in the community.
What are the strategies your district employs to recruit and retain qualified personnel?
In addition to job fairs and advertisements in state and local media, we have an aggressive marketing campaign and have developed a close relationship and good reputation with the university training programs in the state.
What activities do you feel contribute most to your ability to recruit and retain qualified personnel?
The most effective tools for recruiting qualified personnel include the annual salary bonus that we offer for both the CF and CCC, the professional development activities including on-site conferences that attract national speakers and provide participants with both state and ASHA CEUs (continuing education units), and the alternative service delivery model that we employ assigning SLPs as dedicated assessment or intervention clinicians, which eases the paperwork burden and improves our retention rate.
What advice would you give to others in rural settings with recruitment and retention problems?
I would recommend working with district administrators to offer pay incentives and provide or pay for quality CEU programs. I would also encourage districts to experiment with alternative service delivery models to reduce the workload burden and improve overall job satisfaction.
Contact Information: Kathy Wheat, kwheat28@hotmail.com
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