Teacher shortage prompts schools to step up recruitment efforts

The next school year doesn’t start for eight more months, but Idaho Falls District 91 is already publicizing a teacher job fair to be held January 7th.

The demand for new teachers is great. District 91 typically has 80 to 90 teacher openings a year. That number has remained fairly consistent.

But Kelly Coughenour, Director of Elementary Education and Sarah Sanders, Director of Secondary Education for District 91 say the number of candidates to fill those position has dropped quite a bit in recent years.

“As we attend different university job fairs, we’ve seen the number of students graduating and attending those fairs has gone down consistently,” Coughenour said.

Idaho is at a recruiting disadvantage at regional job fairs.

“Some places are very aggressive,” Coughenour said. “They offer a five-thousand dollar signing bonus, a ten-thousand dollar signing bonus. Rock Springs, Wyoming is always there and they offer a very big signing bonus for people to come.”

Amanda Petersen is a first year teacher at Eagle Rock Middle School. Last year she was doing her student teaching across the street at Skyline High School. In the middle of that school year, a long term substitute position came up at Eagle Rock. They needed to find a teacher so badly, that they made arrangements with the University of Idaho to let them hire Petersen even before she had officially graduated.

Petersen says many of her graduating class chose to accept jobs outside of Idaho.

“District 91 has been very good about providing us the technology, but we were taught with so much more, and we know other states have those resources because they have more money for education,” Petersen said. “Along with that, salaries in other states is higher.”

Fortunately, teachers locally are in it for more than the money.

“They’ve got to have a heart for education and a heart for kids,” Sanders said.

Petersen could have moved to a state that pays more, but she’s from Idaho Falls. In fact, she’s teaching at the same middle school she went to as a student, and she loves it.

“It’s so rewarding,” Petersen said. “It’s so cool. Even today watching my students grasp a concept they’ve been struggling with for the past week, understand it — it’s so rewarding and it’s so exciting.”

District 91 says interested applicants may complete a form for the teacher job fair online at www.ifschools.org. They can also get details about the event there.