Manteca Unified will need to hire between 100 and 150 teachers for the upcoming school year.

That number, which is roughly 10 percent of the current 1,187 employed teachers, is a typical annual need.

Those hired will offset resignations, retirements, and enrollment in the district that now has 25,000 students.

The district, due to its stable financial condition, is able to hire teachers year-round even if a vacancy in a particular discipline doesn’t exist at the time.

The district in recent years has stayed on top of filling teaching positions by offering contracts to teachers as far as six months ahead of their actual start date.

While their pay and employment typically doesn’t start until the next school year, it provides them the certainty of having a job.

The district, though, has gone a step further.

They will use teachers  they have signed to contracts that start the following school year as substitute teachers in the meantime as substitute or floater teaches

As such, they are actually hiring and paying them well in advance of the start of the school year and not simply offering them a contract that starts in late July.

The strategy has allowed Manteca Unified to start new school years with almost every position filled with a fulltime teacher.

That is a growing rarity in today’s highly competitive market for teachers in California.

The district stresses its pay and benefit packages that are on the upper end among Northern San Joaquin Valley school districts.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com