Bossier Parish boosts teacher pay and school supply drives

BOSSIER PARISH, La. (KTAL/KMSS) — From staffing increases to supply drives, Bossier Parish Schools are doing what they can to prepare for the first day of school to ensure no child or teacher is left behind.

“So obviously you still have your shortages in areas such as special education, math, science, but here in Bossier we’re seeing actually an increase of interest in the profession through a lot of our grow your own programs,” said Human Resources Supervisor, recruitment and retention director, Dr. Tracey Burrell.

Dr. Burrell says the Grow Your Own program aims to help those interested in becoming full-time classroom teachers. During the upcoming school year, a $2,500 pay increase will bring starting teacher pay to just over 52-thousand dollars a year.

“So that’s that eliminates a lot of the vacancies that we were seeing before because we have a pipeline of individuals in place ready to serve,” said Dr. Burrell.

Meanwhile, Bossier Parish schools are still in need of school supplies.

“We have several school supply drives that are scheduled starting this weekend.” Said Bossier Schools Liaison Sonya Bailes.

Bossier Parish Schools are still dealing with a bus driver shortage.

“We, we do not currently have every route with a driver,
We’re about 10 routes short currently,” said Aaron Megee, director of transportation

Megee says they have about 215 routes each morning and each afternoon, and are constantly looking for new bus drivers.

“If you’re considering being a bus driver, the first thing is not to be intimidated,” said Megee. It’s not a difficult task to drive a bus, but there’s an art to it, learning how to deal with driving the bus with the students behind you.”