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The competition for qualified teachers across the Bay Area is fierce as districts vie for a limited pool of applicants and hope theyll have enough educators to fill every classroom by the first day of school.

In San Francisco, district officials said that while the overall number of teacher vacancies was lower this year than last, they still had 120 openings out of about 2,500 teaching positions a week and a half before Aug. 17, when nearly 50,000 students would file through the doors.

Last school year, the district opened those doors with 40 teacher vacancies, requiring administrators or long-term substitutes to greet students on Day 1.

We are doing everything we possibly can to alert San Franciscans and Bay Area residents who have ever wanted to work in education that we need you now, said Kristin Bijur, head of human resources in the district, sharing her Uncle Sam pitch to any potential job applicant. If you want the world to be a better place and youve resigned another job, we want you here, now. Make a difference in the lives of young people.

Assistant Principal John Lee installs a new projector while academic mentor Jeremy Blower fixes a fan and first-grade teacher Megan Blower works on her desk at Lincoln Elementary School in Oakland.

Despite creative social media campaigns, signing bonuses and other enticements, few if any local districts will start the school year fully staffed, a problem theyve faced to a greater or lesser degree every fall in recent years.

The local hiring crisis comes as California and the country grapple with a teacher shortage exacerbated by the pandemic, which has led to greater resignations and retirements in the educational workforce.

In addition, many districts have needed to hire more teachers given the expansion of transitional kindergarten as well as the influx of a swelling state budget thats pouring an extra $8 billion into state schools, pushing annual education spending past $110 billion and sending districts on hiring sprees.

The impact of fill-in central office educators or long-term substitutes can be devastating for students, who are still reeling from the impact of the pandemic, with critical time for learning and relationship building lost until a permanent teacher is hired. And vacancies often clustered in schools with a disproportionate number of disadvantaged students, leaving them lagging further behind their peers.

Oakland schools reopen Monday, but the district still had 40 to 50 educator openings Thursday for the upcoming school year.

We continue to benefit from one-time funding from the state and federal government related to pandemic relief, and the influx of new funding is creating more positions in the district overall some for current staff, and other positions for which we need to find candidates, said district spokesperson John Sasaki. We are doing widespread internet marketing on multiple platforms, individualized counseling and follow-up with community members who have shown interest.

Amanda Collins, a teacher and librarian, is taking a pay cut to transfer from the Palo Alto School District to San Francisco to fill a teacher shortage and to be closer to her daughter Isla.

State policymakers have been expanding efforts to recruit and retain teachers and the number of new educators entering the job market has been increasing, even through the pandemic.

In 2021, California issued 19,666 teaching credentials, up from 16,500 four years earlier, according to the states Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

Still, back in San Francisco, Bijur was realistic about the not-good odds of filling every classroom with a qualified teacher by the first day of school.

Im not going to pretend that were magically going to produce 137 highly qualified credential teachers in the next three weeks, she said, adding administrators were meeting with principals to consider options, including merging classrooms to eliminate openings.

San Francisco faces steeper odds than many other communities. A payroll debacle has left teachers without paychecks in recent months, the latest headache for a district plagued by controversy, scandal, lawsuits and a successful school board recall, and the high cost of living turns off some recruits.

For veteran teacher librarian Amanda Collins, it wasnt an easy decision to leave her teaching job in Palo Alto to take a job in San Francisco where she lives, despite the expensive and long train commute every day to the Peninsula city, where schools are well-funded by the wealthy community.

Third-grade teacher Claudia Hung-Haas shows the book she will read on the first day of class at Lincoln Elementary School in Oakland. Many Bay Area school districts have teaching positions left to fill before schools open.

But with her daughter starting kindergarten, she wanted to be closer to home and possibly work where her child attends school.

And, she acknowledged, her citys school district really needed her. So, she took a job at Rooftop K-8 and a $40,000 annual pay cut.

That was my biggest deterrent. I wanted to work in San Francisco, she said. The benefits of working where you live are immeasurable, to see students outside of school, to be a bigger part of their lives.

I had to weigh that against a lot of money.

The pay cut was in part due to union rules that limit the number of years of experience that can transfer from one district to another, a contractual limitation that reduced Collins seniority from 18 years to 11 and her salary accordingly.

Its a common labor agreement that discourages transfers, especially to districts that cant compete with the kind of salaries that cities such as Palo Alto pay.

Ben Wu and his daughters Mindy (left) and Michelle receive backpacks from Nhan Nguyen, general manager at Office Depot, at Lincoln Elementary School in Oakland.

The average beginning salary for a teacher is about $50,000 per year, although that varies widely among districts, as do benefits offered. Palo Altos lowest starting salary was $71,000 last year, with the most experienced and highly educated topping out at $144,000, not including benefits.

San Francisco, like many other urban districts, knows this. The districts starting salary is $60,000, with bonuses available for those working in hard-to-fill areas.

So Bijur and others in her position across the Bay Area are hoping to lure district parents, graduates and those with deep roots in their cities to become teachers.

They dont even have to have a credential.

Bijur is advertising across the city that a college degree with the right kind of coursework on a transcript can put someone in a classroom this fall under an emergency credential. The district will then help the budding teacher get the education and training to become a full-fledged educator.

We cant keep up monetarily with everyone else given our cost of living, she said. We wont win the game on that one.

Chong Wang, a staff member at Lincoln Elementary School, unboxes COVID-19 rapid tests to give to students and parents in Oakland.

In Mount Diablo Unified, the chief of human resources, John Rubio, is fighting that same uphill hiring battle.

While the district cant pay salaries as high as some nearby districts, its offering up to $10,000 signing bonuses split between two years for teachers with desired credentials, including those in special education. About 20 newly hired teachers will get the extra cash.

I really believe the hiring bonuses had a significant impact on attracting people to take a hard look at our district, Rubio said.

The Contra Costa County district has also been holding hiring fairs every week for all positions, while advertising on movie theater screens and paying to promote recruitment videos on Facebook.

Still, with students back in less than a week, the district has filled all elementary school positions, but needs about 15 to 20 more high school teachers out of about 1,450 total educators on staff.

Typically, there are about 50 to 60 openings that need to be filled for each fall, but that jumped to about 120 this year.

I do believe people are rethinking how theyre spending their time and their lives, he said. We really feel things could be a lot worse for us right now.

Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker

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These Bay Area school districts are racing to hire teachers before the first day of school - San Francisco Chronicle