AURORA | Normally, Aurora Public Schools superintendent Rico Munn can be found in his Steelers gear-decorated office at the district’s administration building, overseeing the needs of the district’s 38,000 students.
Recently he’s been working with students in a much more direct way.
Every Tuesday you can find him at Aurora Hills Middle School, helping out with whatever gaps the school most needs filled that day. Over at Yale Elementary School, chief technology officer Jeff Konishi is supervising kids in the cafeteria, and instead of crunching numbers chief financial officer Brett Johnson is pitching in at Dalton Elementary School.
Munn and every other administrative employee began working one day a week in a school building starting in November, part of APS’ effort to deal with a pervasive shortage of substitute teachers and other district employees this school year.
“We’re strained at all levels,” Munn said. “Hopefully, this provides some level of support.”
It means that dozens of the district’s upper level execs, usually making big decision for the district, fill in as lunchroom monitors, office clerks and handling myriad other tasks overloaded school employees can’t get to.
Usually, the district has a substitute pool of about 600 people to draw on, he said. Now, it’s below 300 and substitutes are taking fewer jobs than they used to. It’s unclear right now whether the people that used to substitute will return to the workforce post-pandemic. If they don’t, it will permanently alter the education system.
“Is this a fundamental shift in the nature of the workforce, or is this an 18-month hiatus?” Munn wonders.
APS is far from the only district dealing with this problem. Schools across the country are struggling to hire enough employees to keep things running smoothly, causing added strain to the existing employees and hindering what many hoped would be a return to normalcy after the tumult of the previous school year.
According to a national survey conducted this fall by the EdWeek Research Center, 40% of district leaders said that they were experiencing “severe” or “very severe” staffing shortages. The shortages were most acute for substitute teachers, bus drivers and instructional aides.
Cheri Wrench, the director of the Colorado Association of School Boards, said that teacher shortages have been a problem in Colorado for many years, and the pandemic has only exacerbated things.
There are a number of factors playing into the issues, she said. Many substitute teachers are retirement-age, and stopped substituting during the pandemic due to health concerns. Districts are also struggling to offer competitive pay, and many employees are simply burnt out after the heavy workload of the past 18 months.
“What’s being asked of teachers is a lot these days,” Wrench said.
Aurora’s school districts haven’t been as hard-hit as some others in the metro area. Denver Public Schools staffing shortage was so severe that it temporarily moved several schools to online learning last month. Adams 14 School District, Boulder Valley School District and Adams 12 Five Star Schools canceled classes the day after Veteran’s Day because they could not find enough substitute teachers and other staff.
Cherry Creek spokesperson Abbe Smith said that while the district is having staffing issues, “we are not at a level where we are anticipating having to cancel school or go remote.”
It has particularly struggled to retain enough substitutes, and has had to shuffle staff around at times to make ends meet, Smith said. To manage, it is limiting professional development conferences for teachers and other things that require using substitutes, and is increasing its recruiting efforts.
As of Tuesday, Cherry Creek had 200 job openings for external candidates listed online, and APS had 137 openings.
“It’s definitely been a challenging year,” said Keith Elliott, regional vice president for Kelly Services, a staffing company that contracts with school districts, including APS, to hire substitute teachers.
Colorado is struggling slightly more than some other states because it has higher qualifications, he said. Colorado requires substitutes to have a bachelor’s degree, where some states only require a background check.
Districts are also competing with a larger section of the workforce for employees, he said. Previously, they were mostly competing between themselves, but as wages in the restaurant and retail sectors are going up, they’re competing with those industries as well.
To compensate, it’s offering more incentives. At APS, substitutes receive a $200 bonus after working 20 assignments. It’s started to look farther afield for recruits as well. Previously, Elliott said Kelly focused on people who were interested in teaching as a career. Now, it’s also searching for people who are interested in supporting their community and aren’t necessarily looking to work five days a week.
Elliott believes that as the pandemic subsides, the shortages will become less dire. Many retirement-age substitutes plan to come back eventually but are still concerned about COVID.
“The feedback we hear from teachers is ‘I’m going to go back eventually, but I’m not ready yet,’” he said.
I do have a feedback. I have been applying for jobs in APS for so long. I am highly qualified for many positions and their HR z department never call me not even for an interview. They never reply to my emails neither. I want to work in APS and I have a teaching degree but I don’t have any phone calls or emails back from them. I would like a honest reply from them.
Agreed, I’m retired and have a BA in Secondary Education. My application to both APS and Cherry Creek seemed to have gone into the dumpster. Perhaps the problem lies in the recruiting process. How can they agonize over staff shortages when they overlook the resumes and applications that they do get?