Teton School District #401 is in crisis-solving mode following large turnover of educators

TETON COUNTY, Idaho (KIFI) - During a board meeting on Oct. 9, the Teton School District #401 announced they are currently facing two separate crises.

One of these major crises is "attracting and retaining high-quality educators in our district," Teton School District Superintendent Megan Christiansen said.

In her report to the District School Board, Christiansen said back in the 2021-2022 school year, they had hired 82 different people, 24 of those hires were teachers. She stated for the 2023-2024 school year, they hired 109 different people which is a turnover of 46% from the previous year.

Christiansen added in the report the problem isn't finding people they want to have hired but more finding ways to keep them. She recognized the issue as very complex but said one thing to help it is to make the district more collaborative for educators.

"If there are potential candidates that come up to booths at job fairs, there's a disadvantage if neighboring districts have highly collaborative cultures within their districts that could be a holiday calendar. It could be an early release schedule, it could be anything. But if they offer that support for people that's attractive to teachers," Christiansen said.

Though they are still able to find people to hire Christiansen says the applicant pool has decreased rather than increased, unlike the turnover situation in the past three years which has increased.

The Teton School District is just one of the local districts struggling with the national and state-wide teacher shortage. Debbie Critchfield, the State Superintendent, said it's more of a distribution issue than a supply issue. Meaning it's more about where the teachers are going than where they're not.

"As our teachers graduate from teacher programs at our colleges and universities around Idaho, many times they stay in those same neighborhoods or don't go much further away. And particularly over here, here in eastern Idaho, we see students that are graduating from Brigham Young University-Idaho here that go back to a home state," Critchfield said.

She says part of the issue is also finding quality educators to go to the rural communities or the bordering communities where teachers may be willing to commute to Oregon, Washington or Wyoming for higher pay. An issue she says they are working on to resolve with the state, and state legislators are finding ways to invest in Idaho's Educational systems.

"In fact, the legislative representation from over in this part of the state is who brought forward many of the programs that we have that are able to help districts provide better insurance for their teachers, you know, lessen that personal burden that's there," Critchfield said.

She says that investment is already seemingly starting to pay off and take a burden off many of their teachers.

Matt Journee the Director of Communications from the Idaho Education Association says the investment is just a step in the right direction.

"The fact of the matter is, just because we stopped the bleeding doesn't mean the patients are in and out of danger. Right?  We've got to continue making these investments. We've got to continue putting money into these public schools and ensuring that those investments pay off, making sure that students have a safe, warm, welcoming classroom to go to in order to receive their education is essential," Journee said.

He says the funding issue has been a part of the problem within the state for decades. Too often districts rely on funding from bonds or levies to support their staff.

"When districts have to rely on bonds and levies and elections in order to balance their books as opposed to for extraordinary expenses. And there's something wrong with that system. And, you know, the governor and many members of the legislature recognize that and really stepped up and helped out educators last year. But there's still a lot to be done," Journee said.

Christiansen says the teacher shortage issue is complex but creating a support system and a culture of collaboration can stop the district's turnover.