Filling critical-need areas. In California's Silicon Valley, teachers willing to retrain in needed fields may receive grants, and in Wichita, Kansas, minority candidates and paraprofessionals interested in special education receive financial support. Paying health insurance, retirement contributions, relocation expenses, or interviewing costs. Some school districts provide relocation assistance, pay retirement system contributions, or give hotel and restaurant vouchers to those who come for interviews. Some subsidize on-site day care centers for teachers' children.
Several states pay retired teachers their pensions plus salaries if they return to the classroom.
Christopher Cross, president of the Council for Basic Education and a former assistant U.S. secretary of education in the George Bush Sr. administration, told Education World how important it is to recruit people who are trained but are not teaching. He suggests waiving the cap on retirement earnings for teachers and allowing them to return to the classroom while still collecting social security and state pensions, an especially attractive proposition because retirees often live in places with the worst shortages, such as Florida, California, and Nevada. Offering tough-assignment incentives. Nevada is considering offering teachers retirement credit for every five years they teach in critical-needs schools and permitting teachers in rural schools to convert unused sick leave into retirement credit. New York state may subsidize tuition for undergraduates pledging to teach in critical-need public schools.