Broken Arrow Public Schools welcomes over 150 new teachers to the district

BROKEN ARROW, Okla. — Broken Arrow Public Schools (BAPS) is welcoming over 150 new teachers to the district.

All of those teachers are going through a week of welcoming and celebration ahead of their first day of school next week.

FOX23 spoke with the school district on Wednesday about how they’re welcoming these teachers and what it means for the students.

It’s an exciting week for these teachers and their soon-to-be students.

BAPS said they’re thrilled to have this many teachers filling vacancies to successfully teach every student.

BAPS is the fifth largest district in Oklahoma but hosts the largest high school.

Boasting more than 4,500 students in their high school alone, drawing in a large number of teachers each year is a must.

Kristin Henness, the executive director of teaching and learning at BAPS, said that’s exactly what they were able to do this year.

“We have 150 new BA employees, with 45 of those being novice, first year in the classroom teachers,” Henness said.

Those 150 teachers are filling roles all over the district.

They were greeted at the start of this week by a celebration from students and staff.

“We greet all of our new teachers with our students first so that they know that’s the first thing we want on their minds. We greet them with our jungle squad, our Tigettes, our cheerleaders, our mascot and of course the pride of Broken Arrow,” Henness said.

On top of welcoming and celebrating their arrival, the school also begins training them and equipping them with the proper tools to teach their students.

“We teach them any new thing from here’s where the teachers’ lounge is all the way to here’s your mentor teacher. They’re gonna be the ones that help you with curriculum or help provide you guidance from the day to day at their site,’ Henness said.

FOX23 stopped at the Vanguard Academy in Broken Arrow where the new teachers were already training amongst their colleagues.

“We have breakout sessions for those that are veteran teachers and they’ve already been in the classroom. Their support is just different,” said Henness. “Then our novice teachers get what we call ‘Smart Start’. It’s the way they work on a plan for classroom management. So they leave here ready for the first ten days of school.”

Out of the 150 teachers, only nine are filling new positions and the rest are filling vacancies.

They said their teacher retention from last year was better than ever.

Broken Arrow has maintained around a 20 to one student-teacher ratio with this hiring, but they said they are still actively hiring teachers across the school district in various subjects.