Indiana schools seek ways to address 2,300 open teaching jobs
LEBANON, Ind. (WISH) — According to the Indiana Department of Education website, more than 2,300 open teaching jobs exist across the state.
Nicole Allee is superintendent of the North Putnam School Corp., based west of Indianapolis in the town of Bainbridge. She said, “We had a recent opening, and we got three applicants.”
Allee says it’s an ongoing issue they’re trying to solve as less people go into the profession.
“I can tell you when I was a building principal, 10 to 15 years ago, at the end of the year I would take home a paper box of applications and resumes. It is real, especially so at the high school level where positions are more specialized and subject critical,” Allee said.
Kevin O’Rourke is the principal at Lebanon High School. He says he and his crew has had to get creative when it comes to hiring teachers.
“For example, maybe we have a special-needs teacher that has a background in math and we’re hiring a math teacher, and that person is great working with kids and certain type of student that we’re looking for, then we’ll work on a special license with that individual,” O’Rourke said.
Back in Bainbridge, Allee says she believes there are several reasons fewer people are applying to open jobs: “The demands on the time, the requirements that have to be met with curriculum, and, not that there haven’t always been requirements, but the pressure to meet those with standardized testing is just at a different level than what it was.”
At Lebanon, O’Rourke says he’ll keep working to get more great people in to teaching because of the impact he knows it has on kids.
“It’s very uplifting to know you have the opportunity to make a positive impact and truly a change in an individual, and that change could be generational because that change isn’t just in them, but it changes their children and on and on. It is an incredibly important and noble profession, and I have the deepest respect for our teachers and what they do.”
Both educators say the list of open positions at schools goes beyond teachers, though, and also involves janitorial, food service and buses.