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School districts in Southern New Hampshire are seeing a dip in teacher applications for open special education positions in public schools.
To fill the positions in time for the start of the school year, and to meet state requirements for students with learning disabilities, most districts will need to contract out for services.
“Today, we are at 16 professional vacancies, most, if not all, are special education professions or related service positions,” said Timberlane Regional School District Superintendent Justin Krieger last week.
The Timberlane Regional School District educates students from Atkinson, Danville, Plaistow and Sandown.
Though a few of those vacancies are for elementary and middle school teachers, most are for psychologists, speech and language pathologists, special education facilitators and teachers and special education case managers.
The reason for the vacancies, Krieger speculates, is based on the falling number of applicants for teacher prep programs at universities nationwide.
“Those (who graduate) are mostly folks with clinical degrees that could work in the private sector for more compensation than in a school setting,” he said.
This year, enrollment was down by more than 40% at schools like Southern New Hampshire University, Plymouth State University and the University of New Hampshire, Krieger said.
“This year is better than last year in terms of the number and quality of candidates but nowhere reflective of where it was five to 10 years ago,” he continued.
Salem School District Superintendent Maura Palmer agreed and added that contracted services, which are often more costly, will be needed, especially in the short term while searching for a permanent hire.
“We are starting the school year in the Salem School District with four teacher vacancies, all at the high school; the rest of our vacancies are support staff positions,” Palmer said. “Our vacancies are comparable to last year in the support staff realm, but it is somewhat unique to have more than one teacher opening.”
Before contracting for services, school districts such as Timberlane, Salem and Hampstead are looking for short-term solutions, like bringing in retired educators to teach in the interim or asking teachers to take on additional curriculum.
Of the 30 open staffing positions within the Derry School District, 22 of them are for support staff, most of which are for special education services, according to the district website. Derry school officials declined to comment after several attempts.
Hampstead School District is seeing a similar issue, but on a smaller scale, said Superintendent Bob Thompson.
“This is about average for this time of year,” he said ahead of the start of the school year. “Hampstead historically does well since we have high staff retention and we are see as a destination for candidates.”
Still, the Hampstead School District has four vacancies, all in the area of special education.
It’s too early to determine how these vacancies and contracted services will affect budgets. Superintendents say they will continue to recruit for permanent in-house positions throughout the school year as part of a rolling application process in the hope of controlling costs.
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