Calvert County Public Schools’ (CCPS) Human Resources Department presented its annual report on “Teacher Recruitment and Placement,” Thursday, Dec. 5 to the local school board.

Dr. Victoria Karol, the department’s acting director, presented the report to the Calvert County Board of Education (BOE) during a pre-meeting work session. Data for the current school year shows that 54 of the 73 newly hired teachers within the Calvert system “have earned a master’s degree and one has earned a doctorate.” Additionally, 44 percent of the newly hired teachers were recruited from other Maryland counties. Karol said the number was “very high” in comparison with other jurisdictions.

The report also stated that the average experience for newly hired teachers is 4.5 years. Still, first-year teachers account for 41 percent of the 2013-2014 new hires.

Colleges in Maryland and Pennsylvania have been the busiest incubators of Calvert’s newly hired teachers. The College of Notre Dame in Baltimore, Towson University and the University of Maryland each have seven of their alumni now employed by CCPS. The 12 teachers from Pennsylvania come from 11 different colleges.

A total of 21 special education teachers are among the newly hired, with 12 of them teaching at the elementary level.

The impact the recently hired teachers have had on the CCPS workforce includes having 95 percent of the core academic subject classes taught by “highly qualified” teachers for three years in a row

Karol said her department is also keeping close track of the CCPS’ teachers “age distribution.” The largest age group is currently teachers in their 40s—39 percent of CCPS’ current teachers’ workforce.

“That’s a big group there,” said Karol. Additionally, 19 percent of the current teachers are in their 50s and 6 percent age 60 and above.

Additional data shows many products of the Calvert County system are coming home to teach. Thirty percent (22) of the new hires attended high school in Calvert County.

As for the recruitment of more minority teachers, Karol reported, “we are making gains in that area. This school year slightly over 8 pe