District works to fill variety of open positions

By Leah Rainwater

The St. Joseph School District continued its efforts to bring in more teachers and staff members with a hiring fair on Tuesday.

“This is our fourth or fifth time we’ve tried this,” said Assistant Superintendent, Brian Kraus. “And the last few times, we’ve had 40 to 50 people show up, which is a good showing. And ya know, if we get 15 to 20 employees out of that, that would be great for us.”

On-site interviews were provided for the following positions:

Teachers

Full-time substitutes

Special education paras

Reset room paras

English language development paras

Administrative assistant

Facilities/custodial

One applicant who attended the hiring fair said he appreciates the idea of the event.

“I appreciate that I was able to apply for multiple jobs at once, cause then it’s not multiple interviews,” James Alberty said.

Alberty is a Savannah, Missouri, resident and is getting his master’s degree in teaching from Missouri Western State University.

He said he wants to make a difference in kids’ lives here in St. Joseph.

“I want students in the St. Joseph area to feel cared about,” Alberty said. “And I value education and I have always valued education. I hope I get hired because I want to excite kids and I want them to have this passion for learning that I have.”

Not only is it the district’s plan to recruit staff for the next academic year, but the hiring event will also help with the recruitment and retention aspect of the long-range plan.

“The long-range plan always was to have the best staff available that we can, because a great staff makes a great school district,” Kraus said. “And so, yes, we’re hoping to get people who are already invested in the community who are going to be life-time employees for us.”

Kraus said you don’t need to have a teaching degree to apply to any of the positions.

“We’re still looking for people in all occupational categories, we’re still looking for teachers. And we’re really pushing hard to find people who have a bachelor’s degree in something other than education, that maybe are ready for a change,” said Kraus. “If there are people like that, we hope they’ll contact us cause we can get them into a program — an alternative certification program, start paying them as a teacher from day one, and it’s a good way to transition them into the profession.”

The next hiring fair will be on July 25 at the SJSD Administrative Building.