By Yana Kunichoff | Arizona Republic
Chino Valley Unified School District Superintendent John Scholl is grateful that his district was able to hire teachers from the Philippines to help fill the rural district’s teacher shortage.
But now the district is dealing with another area of scarcity: housing.
Most of the international educators don’t have a credit score, which means some landlords won’t rent to them, or they don’t have a driver’s license, limiting how far they can live from their schools, Scholl said.
So the district decided to join a handful of other rural Arizona districts to build its own housing for school staff.
“They’re doing a fantastic job for us — and we want to make it so that we’re an attractive place for international teachers,” Scholl said. “Providing the housing in town would really help.”
Chino Valley is currently designing 10 studio units that it will build near its Del Rio Elementary School. The tiny houses will each be about 400 square feet.
