PRESCOTT, AZ — Thousands of teachers are still needed to fill positions across the state. However, the Prescott Unified School District is starting on a new, growing solution to hopefully recruit more teachers.
Prescott High School math teacher Jacob Harrelson had no trouble finding a job last year. As a first-time teacher, he was able to land a gig at Prescott High. But when it came to housing, it was difficult to find.
He spent four days last April looking for a home in Prescott, moving from New Mexico. Of the places he found, he said they were too expensive for his first-year teacher salary. He eventually resigned to moving in with a roommate.
“This is the place you want to be. So, just to scrape off the floor… you want to be here. So, whatever it takes, I wanted to be here,” he said.
Unlike Harrelson, though, Prescott Unified Assistant Superintendent Clark Tenney tells ABC15 some people who accepted job offers ended up not coming.
“People are often very surprised about how expensive it is to live here. We’ve had people call up and say, ‘I can’t do it. I'm so sorry,’ and that puts us behind in the hiring phase,” he said.
According to Realtor.com, the median price for a home in Prescott is about $630,000. For rent, it’s nearly $2,000, according to Zillow.
“Our starting teachers start around $51,000, with everything together. So, it’s just not enough. And they’re not able to stay here,” Tenney said.
This is why the district is building new homes for teachers to rent out for at least a year. Six homes will be built behind Taylor Hicks Elementary School. Four of those homes will be for teachers, and through a partnership with the city of Prescott, one will go to a firefighter and another to a police officer.
It’s what’s called a “teacherage” and the number of these communities is growing. Following Prescott Unified starting its process, the Chino Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) is also getting involved and will build some homes for teachers, too. For CVUSD, the district said it is looking to build 10 studio units and hopes to have them done by August 2023.
Rent for the community in Prescott will be about $1,200, according to Tenney. It’s about 900 sq ft and will have two beds and one bathroom.
It’ll cost the district almost $1 million. That money comes from the district’s funds which they can only use that money for new builds. Tenney said they do not have any other plans to build new schools yet, so they could use that money to build the homes. The district will also have an additional $500,000 grant to help.
“We’ve had some people in the community asking a reasonable question, ‘Why can’t you just pay teachers more? Then you wouldn’t have to have subsidized housing.’ If somebody can give me a $5-10 million annual stream of new funding, absolutely, we’ll pay teachers more. But, that’s not what we have available. What we have available is $500,000 matching grant for teacher housing now,” Tenney said.
On Thursday afternoon, the district held a ceremony to start on construction, hoping to have it all ready for teachers to move in by late July.
They hope it’ll make a dent in some way to recruit teachers and bring more people in like Harrelson.
“When I saw it, I was like, ‘Oh, great… I’m a year late. What the heck.’ I think this is such a wonderful opportunity, especially for new teachers,” Harrelson said.
Tenney said if the first community of their “teacherage” is successful, they may build more in other areas of the city.
