APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Many school districts are kicking off their school year this week, but many are also still short teachers and other staff.
Appleton School District is still looking for 22 educators, five of which are classroom teachers.
“A positive situation that our enrollment went up late in the summer, but then that poses some challenges for us in finding staff members,” says Appleton’s new superintendent Greg Hartjes.
The district does have a plan for the first day on Thursday.
“We’ll start with a long-term sub in place. We have some very strong subs that can do great work in the classrooms for us,” says Hartjes.
But the district is also in need of substitute teachers.
Hartjes says they then face the challenge of pulling these subs out of the sub pool.
“We’re always looking for subs — but especially this year — because like I said, we do know there are going to be times when the pandemic is going to ramp up again, and we’re going to have to respond,” says Hartjes.
In regards to staffing, Green Bay Public Schools says they are doing better than they thought, but they’re also still hiring.
“We have approximately 12 classroom positions still open yet for the school year, for Thursday,” says Director of Communications for Green Bay Public Schools Lori Blakeslee.
Blakeslee says they don’t just have open teacher positions.
“We still have 12 food service worker positions open and 12 custodial positions open,” says Blakeslee.
Green Bay Public Schools has been getting creative in the ways it recruits staff; they are also bringing in retired teachers to help fill positions.
“We have done a lot this year with social media, whether it’s paid Facebook and Instagram ads, we actually sent emails out to all of the parents of the schools where the openings were at to let them know,” says Blakeslee.
The Oshkosh Area School District is also still hiring for its first day of school.
They currently have 61 total openings, 20 of those being for teachers. They have 35 openings for paraprofessionals.
Comments