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Staffing Needs FAQ

Staff hands in air

How is the District recruiting new employees? 

 The Madison Community Education Department has been:

  • Advertising through our social media accounts (both Community Ed and District wide)
  • Posting on hiring websites such as Indeed
  • Posting on childcare specific hiring sites such as the AZ Early Childhood Workforce Registry and AZToolkit
  • Leveraging relationships with PVCC, Phoenix College, ASU, GCU, and NAU to help recruit students in their educational programs for work
  • Providing a new hire stipend of $500 ($250 paid after 90 days and $250 paid at the 1-year mark)
  • Offering a referral bonus to any existing staff that refers a new employee for hire
  • Providing families with preschool or MAC tuition credit for referring an employee for hire 
  • Prioritizing wage increases by increasing club leader wages once last year as well as proposing another increase, which will hopefully be approved in April, depending on the District’s budget 
  • Increasing the number of full-time positions by offering 25 full-time positions to our part- time employees to try to retain staff by providing benefits and increased hours 
  • Increasing staff professional development as well as staff appreciation measures to try to retain existing staff 
  • Advertising on school marquees and school newsletters

 

Are all schools being impacted by the staffing crisis? 

Yes, to varying degrees. None of our 8 campuses are fully staffed. One of the things that we tell families and staff is that if you are tied to a specific site and refer someone, we will guarantee that the person you refer goes to your campus. If your school community wants to rally together to refer staff we can make sure they get to your school to provide services to those families specifically. 

If MAC increases its rates, could that help solve this staffing crisis?

MAC was approved for a rate increase for the 22/23 school year that was reflected in our new registration. Although this will help us cover our salaries, we still have to fit into the larger District salary schedule, so we have some limitations tied to the overall District budget. Additionally, we take DES subsidies at some of our sites requiring us to stay at a certain tuition level to offer assistance to families. 

How long until I get a call?

We don’t have an answer for that question. We can guarantee that we have the waitlist open daily and move people off of it as quickly as we can hire a new employee. For MAC enrollment, we may call and offer you a few days that we have available and leave you on the waitlist for other days that we do not have capacity. 

Will this impact summer MAC? 

Our low staff naturally impacts summer as that is where we get the bulk of our staff. Our MAC and preschool staff are only contracted for the school year. Summer (as well as fall, winter, spring break) are optional for most CE employees. We do employ other district staff over the summer (SPED paras, custodians, bus drivers, etc) which sometimes helps us fill in the gaps. We don't have firm answers right now for summer this year. Our staff sign up is due this week (March 25), at which point we will be able to see how many groups we will be able to enroll. 

How can Madison families help?

Spread the word!  More staff is the solution to our waitlist. If you get them here, we will get them trained and ready to go.  Madison is such a community-supported district that we know our families can rally together to help. Follow us on social media and share our ‘Now Hiring’ posts.  Print flyers and hang them at your work, gyms, churches, apartment complexes, etc. 

 

Thank you for all of your patience and support as we work to get new employees hired and trained as soon as possible so that we can serve all families that need MAC and preschool in Madison.