The period between May and the start of school is often an uncertain time for school districts, as they try to secure the necessary staff before students return at the end of August.
That’s especially true for the Claremont and Newport districts this year. Both have struggled with school financing over the past year, with Claremont retiring most of a $5 million deficit, and Newport cutting its budget to win voter approval. Both districts still have multiple openings in areas of need.
Officials in both districts said they are making progress in hiring new staff, but that more work remains. And in some cases, market forces will make it nearly impossible to hire staff for certain roles, forcing the districts to rely on costly contracted services.
“I’m not getting many applicants, and when I am, I can’t meet salaries,” Darlene Ayotte, director of student support services in Newport’s SAU 43, said in a phone interview. A job for a speech-language pathologist has been posted since Ayotte started in her current role, about a year ago.
The primary issue is that fewer people are going into education careers, particularly in special education fields, such as psychology, occupational therapy or speech therapy. And those who are going into special education can choose to work in a clinical setting, such as a hospital, or for a private company that provides services to schools, Ayotte said. Hospitals and private companies tend to pay better, she said.
As of Tuesday, SAU 43 had nine jobs open for student support service providers according to a listing through the district’s website. That’s the most in one category among the 41 open positions listed for the district.
The online listings likely don’t reflect new hires that have agreed to jobs in principle, but haven’t yet signed contracts.
For example, SAU 6 in Claremont lists nine jobs for high school teachers, including for chemistry, physical sciences, English and Spanish, but district officials have hired for those jobs, Candace Crawford, chairwoman of the Claremont School Board, said in an interview.
“They told us on Wednesday night (June 17) that the high school has filled all of its openings,” Crawford said.
There are more openings at Claremont Middle School, 11 of them, and while district officials are trying to fill those jobs with certified teachers, a plan B is to hire qualified people who are on a path to licensure, according to minutes of the School Board’s meeting on June 3.
The district has hired a new middle school principal, Nichole Boynton, who’d been the student services coordinator at Disnard Elementary School, which should help with securing staff for the school, Crawford said. A principal generally oversees interviewing and hiring teachers for their school.
“I know that this past week, they had interviews with six people for middle school positions,” Crawford said.
Boynton served as acting assistant principal at the middle school after the unexpected resignation of Dale Chenette in mid-May.
Chenette had begun last year as principal of Bluff Elementary School, which was closed as part of a hasty consolidation as the district grappled with a $5 million deficit that caused a cash crunch. He was moved to the middle school to replace Kerry Kennedy, who became interim superintendent for SAU 6.
Last August, the district’s financial troubles led to the release from contract of 19 staff members who had already started orientation in Claremont. The district cut another 25 staff in October, because it didn’t have the money to pay them, Crawford said.
Those cuts fell heavily on the middle school, she said. In any year, 20% to 25% turnover is to be expected, Crawford said. The district has a budget sufficient to provide staffing, but finding candidates is difficult, she added.
“It’s hard to find teachers. Every district will tell you that,” she said. There are fewer people going into education, and the coronavirus pandemic led to a wave of early retirements.
But there are hopeful signs, both in Claremont and Newport. Claremont is hiring a human resources director, a position that has gone unfilled for some time, which should help bring in new staff.
Rob Wargo, who just started as interim superintendent in Newport, said turnover of staff is an annual issue, but the scale of staffing issues for special education is new, and not unique to Newport.
Speaking of the district more broadly, Wargo said, “I’ve not heard anything yet that we are not going to be able to fill those positions.”
