PHOENIX — As school districts prepare contracts and discussions of staffing for the next school year, there’s now another obstacle in their way: the new $100,000 cost for international teachers coming on H-1B visas.
For years, Arizona school districts have relied on international teachers to help fill positions amidst an ongoing teacher shortage. However, one of the visas that helps bring those foreign teachers to the country and state now costs six figures, a cost that some districts may not be able to withstand.
Educator Julius Marco Albeza came from the Philippines to teach in America. He now teaches upper-level math to students in Tonopah.
“Better pay and a change of environment,” Albeza said about why he came to teach in America. He told ABC15 that his family was growing, and he needed to find ways to help provide for them. Previously, Albeza was in America on a J-1 visa, went back to the Philippines, then came back on an H-1B visa.
Albeza is one of eight teachers in the Saddle Mountain Unified School District on a visa, either H-1B or J-1. District superintendent Dr. Michael Winters said they have four educators on each visa.
“They are incredibly well-credentialed. They usually have master's degrees, they know their content to really high levels,” Winter said. “Unfortunately, especially in a rural area, those individuals are very hard to find.”
If a district decides to hire an educator from out of the country through an H-1B visa, it will now cost $100,000. This new fee was announced in a proclamation from President Donald Trump in the fall. In his announcement, Trump said he put the fees in place because the tech industry hired international workers at a cheaper rate than Americans.
“If there's any kind of misuse of the H-1B visa, school districts, the education industry isn't the one doing that,” said Phil Ortega, an immigration attorney who works with more than 100 school districts in Arizona and the country.
Winters said his district cannot afford to hire a new international educator through H-1B with that cost. Ortega said it usually costs a district a couple thousand dollars to hire international teachers.
“$100,000 dollars for us, especially smaller and rural, is a lot of money,” Winters added.
For Maricopa Unified, another rural school district, a spokesperson told ABC15 they have 29 teachers on H-1B visas and 106 teachers on J-1.
"We will only entertain H-1B candidates that are already in the United States, so that we're just catching them maybe in a renewal process or if they're transferring their H-1B status from one district or employer to us,” said Tom Beckett, the assistant superintendent of Human Resources for Maricopa Unified. “We will not be able to afford $100,000. Our salaries are in the $60,000, $70,000 range, and it's impractical for us to even consider bringing somebody in with that kind of a fee.”
Both Beckett and Winters say they may have to rely on J-1 visas in the future. However, those aren’t as stable for school districts, according to Ortega.
J-1 visas are typically for cultural exchanges. Visa holders can stay up to a max of five years, but every couple of years, they are required to return to their home country.
H-1B visas can be used up to six years, lasting longer, and also has a pathway to a green card.
The visas are typically used and paid for by the school districts to hire for hard-to-fill positions.
“If we didn't have them filling those positions, we're really, really scrambling to find somebody to not only teach but also has content knowledge for those upper-level mathematics or science courses,” Winters said.
Jason Hammond, the CEO of International Alliance Group, says his organization helps connect school districts with international teachers. Hammond says they primarily work with J-1 visas, but recently started doing H-1B visas until the Trump Administration dropped the proclamation.
"We brought approximately 50 [educators on H-1B visas], and we had expected that to continue to grow, but that just shut down immediately. Once that presidential proclamation was made, all the requests ended,” Hammond said.
Now, advocates are pushing for a blanket exemption for the education industry, worried it could put a bigger strain on the teacher shortage and in classrooms.
"It's just mind-blowing. It'll be very hard for America to look for teachers considering that big of an amount,” Albeza said.
