100 Hired as Teachers at Weekend Job Fair

About 40 teachers and 60 substitutes landed positions with Anaheim City School District schools at a weekend job fair to kick-start the district’s plan for reducing class sizes.

The Saturday fair, the district’s first, drew about 500 applicants to Thomas Jefferson Elementary School, surprising district officials who had expected only 200.

Most of those hired have emergency credentials, said Ann Beavers, assistant superintendent of personnel administration.

The new teachers will begin classroom work Jan. 27 and will help reduce first- and second-grade class sizes at 16 of the district’s 22 schools.

The state has set a Feb. 16 deadline for schools to have size-reduction programs in place. Campuses that meet the ratio of 20 students to each teacher will get a bonus of $650 per student.

The district, which barely has enough seats for students now, received a waiver from the state allowing the same number of students in each classroom, with an additional teacher for every two classes.

Each of the new teachers will form a team with two experienced educators.

Because of a shortage of classroom space, the district waited longer than most others in the county to implement reductions while it drew up a plan to accommodate increasing enrollment.

“We had to do it in a sensible order,” Supt. Roberta Thompson said. “Our first responsibility is to provide for every student in Anaheim.”

Thompson said the district was not forced to hire less-qualified teachers because the fair was held just as December college graduates were looking for jobs.

“We believed that there were a lot of good people out there and that all the stories of the bottom of the barrel weren’t true,” Thompson said. “We capitalized on the fresh barrel.”