In a short special meeting on Thursday, July 23, the Santa Clara Unified Board of Trustees approved a “Declaration of Need for Fully Qualified Educators (Emergency Credential)” for the 2024 – 2025 school year.
“The declaration of need is a yearly document that we take to the Board in case we need to hire teachers mid-year who are not fully credentialed in a specific subject area but who are qualified to teach,” said Director Jennifer Dericco, the District’s Public Information Officer in an email.
According to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, the Governing Board of a school district may approve the Declaration of Need to enable newly hired teachers to apply for Emergency Permits if needed to fill a specific position within a district. In the agenda, the District says it will make an effort to hire fully credentialed certificated employees but, if needed, it may be necessary to employ teachers on Emergency Permits.
This Declaration of Need will remain in force until June 30, 2025.
New Hires
After a short closed session, the Board approved hiring Dr. Nicole Tafoya as the new Vice-Principal for Kathleen MacDonald High School and Stephanie Rothstein as the new Vice-Principal for Wilcox High School.
For the Business Services department, Sweekar Simpson was approved as the new Risk Manager and the Board approved hiring Shanny Yam as Director of Fiscal Services.
Other Business
The only consent item on the agenda was the “2024-2025 Consultant Fuel Ed for Santa Clara High School” which was approved by the Board. According to the agenda, Santa Clara High School wanted to contract with Fuel Ed to train staff on “creating an empathic culture and climate on August 6, 2024.”
The Board passed the resolutions for the California School Healthy Air, Plumbing, and Efficiency Program for secondary and elementary Schools.
School Board meetings return on Thursday, Aug. 8. Meetings are live-streamed on the District’s YouTube page, and agendas are posted on their website.