By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Teacher shortages across Kansas are worsening, so school districts are seeking new ways to recruit and retain teachers.
Area school administrators met at Fort Hays State University on June 6 to discuss teacher recruitment and retention strategies.
In fall 2023, the state had an estimated 1,810 teacher vacancies, according to the Kansas State Department of Education. In fall 2022, there were 1,650 reported vacancies.
Hays USD 489 has four open teaching positions and, at this point, has no applicants for the positions, said Superintendent Ron Wilson via email.
USD 489 is looking for a high school math teacher, an elementary vocal music teacher, an elementary special education teacher and a teacher at Early Childhood Connections.
According to Educate Kansas, the specialties in the greatest demand are special education, math and science.
"Although we have dodged the teacher shortage issue the last several years, we are now starting to feel the impact inside our district with having no applicants for these four open positions," Wilson said.
"We are still hopeful that we will be able to fill these positions before the start of school in August."
He said the district is looking at creative ways to fill these positions.
Administrators remain optimistic that the positions could be filled using the transition to teaching program or the newly approved Kansas Department of Education teacher apprentice program.
Kansas universities, including Fort Hays State University, participate in these programs.
If the district is unable to find anyone interested in those programs, district administrators will consider long-term substitutes and sponsored student teaching candidates to fill positions, Wilson said.
Dave Younger, former legislator and superintendent for USD 214, said the school district in Ulysess owned houses that they offered to new teachers for the first year or two of their tenures.
He said the small school district in western Kansas struggles to compete against larger communities.
Younger said his district had to change its recruiting strategies.
"I was sitting there at our little booth, and nobody, nobody came," he said. "There was a line coming around the corner. Where are those people going? It was Spring Hill and Shawnee Mission."
Young people want to live in urban areas, Younger said. "They often eventually want to come home to rural areas to raise their families, but not initially, he said.
Instead of attending college teacher fairs and talking to seniors, they targeted underclassmen.
"We brought them in, bought them dinner, and just had a conversation with them," he said. "It was not a hard sales pitch, but we were starting to turn a corner then."
The district also offered a signing bonus for new teachers.
Last year, the Victoria school district considered going to a four-day school week in hopes of attracting more applicants for teaching positions. That plan did not move forward.
Superintendent Kimberly Woolf said at that time the district was only receiving about two applications per open position.
Cris Seidel is the program director for Educate Kansas, which assists 18 school districts from across the state with recruiting.
"It really is complex," she said. "There's not going to be one magic bullet that actually fixes this. There are so many layers to this."
Common barriers she sees are housing and access to child care. However, she said each district needs to identify barriers specific to their communities.
"That connection, that culture, is so vital when we think about the teacher shortages," she said.
Jennifer Olt, a 19-year veteran teacher currently working for USD 489, said relationships keep her teaching.
"I'm a walking billboard for my profession," she said. "If I don't show [my students] every day that I want to be there and that I love them, I need to quit. I do it for them. I want to see them succeed."
However, Olt said teachers also want to feel their administrators value them.
"That comes from at a district level who says we understand that you as a person matter," she said.
This comes when teachers say they think their profession is not valued.
Eighty-eight percent of Hays teachers surveyed said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the superintendent's leadership, which was much higher than the state average of 56%.
Olt said flexibility in her work schedule is also important to her as a working mother.
She said she was grateful her principal at Hays High School allowed her to take off time to visit her daughter's school Valentine's Day party.
Olt also encouraged districts to tap into high school teacher career programs similar to the one Hays High has implemented and she leads.