District forecasts recruitment challenges

By Marcus Clem

As the St. Joseph School District sets to work on hiring teachers and staff this summer, it faces a challenge.

Assistant Superintendent Brian Kraus told the Board of Education this week that he does not have specific numbers on the effort to hire employees for the 2024-25 year, but that the “applicant pool” — people who are qualified and available to work for the district — is reduced in size compared to last year.

The district, as it stands, has more than 200 open positions, according to the official job board. At any given time, about 1,600 people work for the district, including nearly 800 teachers. Despite this, Kraus said, there could be cause for optimism on the basis of how the hiring process has gone relative to how things were unfolding in June 2023.

“We’ve got a lot of hiring to do, and a lot of it, we’re getting done,” he said. “… I don’t have any quantitative data on the exact number (of hirings) at this time in the year. From talking with my office staff, I’d say we’re ahead of where we were last year. But I would also add that our applicant pool is even more shallow than last year.”

The shortage of applicants across the state is as bad as it has ever been, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education told KCUR 89.3 this spring, reflecting on how more than 3,300 positions across the state are vacant.

“It’s the worst right now than it’s ever been so I don’t know a better reason to get urgent about something,” DESE official Paul Katnik said, as quoted by the radio station. “I can’t think of any reason why uneducated kids in our state is good for anybody, so it should be something that’s on all of our radar.”

Local schools will, to the extent they can, increasingly have to rely on programs like Grow Your Own. Based on each person’s needs and qualifications, via Grow Your Own, college students receive money to pay for the cost of attending a college or university. Thereafter, they are committed to teach for the St. Joseph School District for a set time.

Amid his report, Kraus offered comments in response to school board member Whitney Lanning. Thereafter, none of the board members offered further comment, before the board formally accepted the report on a vote of 6-0. Lanning abstained.