Beaumont ISD has filled almost 300 open positions within the district since July.
Most of the positions filled were teachers, aides and retire-rehire tutors, which are veteran teachers who support students with educational gaps from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Elementary teachers were in high demand entering in to the new school year, as were bus drivers, custodial and maintenance staff and child nutrition workers.
BISD Human Resources Manager Brandon Basinger said in an email that there were 176 open elementary school teacher positions before the year began, with 105 of them now filled.
At the middle school and high school levels, 45 math and English/reading teachers were needed with 27 now filled.
While there has been progress in hiring more teachers, Basinger said the district is still looking to hire more.
"We have hired many elementary teachers and have some candidates in the hiring process currently, (but) we do still need more across the district," he said. "The secondary subjects still in high demand remain high school math and English/reading."
Basinger said the district is also still actively seeking bus drivers, custodial and maintenance and child nutrition workers.
The open positions and difficulty in filling them has stemmed from the stresses of the pandemic as well as new state regulations that have made finding qualified workers a challenge.
The pandemic has caused veteran teachers to retire or leave the profession for health reasons and fewer students are entering the profession, creating a shortage of teachers, Basinger said.
"Teachers, in general, are all difficult to find nationwide at this time, as our country is struggling with an unprecedented workforce shortage at large," he said.
But other district-wide positions are also proving hard to fill, such as bus drivers, BISD Executive Director of Human Resources Derwin Samuels said in an email.
"It is now more difficult than ever to find qualified bus drivers," he said. "This is due, in part, to new requirements by the state that bus drivers have the same CDL certification and training required to drive 18-wheelers for transport companies. The workforce shortage in the transportation field and the additional requirement that our bus drivers have the same training has led to school districts having to compete with the entire transportation industry for bus drivers."
Certain teaching positions have also proven harder to fill than others, Samuels said.
"As far as specific fields for teachers, our most difficult positions to fill are bilingual-certified elementary teachers," he said. "We do offer a substantial incentive to try to attract these teachers to our area, but it remains especially difficult to fill for three reasons: the need for bilingual educators is growing all across our state, the requirements of the certification are extensive and the numbers of qualified teachers seeking those certifications are not increasing enough to meet the demand state-wide."
The district aims to reduce the total number of vacancies within the district by 15% by June 2022, Samuels said.
"In order to meet this goal, we have recently hired a full-time recruiter at Beaumont ISD to assist for this year and beyond," he said. "We are also in the process of planning a teacher job fair in late March to assist us in our efforts."
The job fair will take place March 26 at the Administration Building. The time of the event has not been announced yet.
Samuels said the district is already looking towards the next school year and is always aiming to reach fully-staffed status.
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Beaumont ISD has filled 300 positions. They still need more. - Beaumont Enterprise
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