The Rochester City School District is sprinting to fill vacancies ahead of the upcoming school year.
With about six weeks before the start of school, interim superintendent Demario Strickland said one key area his administration is looking to address is transportation.
“We continue to have a driver shortage,” Strickland said during a school board meeting Thursday. “Our hope is that it will not be felt as much this year since we have done a lot of right-zoning and making sure that students are within their zone, which will shorten routes, things of that nature.”
Chief of Human Capital Chris Miller said the district is in a better position compared to this time two years ago when there were 352 vacancies. He credited the district’s downsizing with a reconfiguration plan that takes effect the 2024-25 school year.
Still, the district is looking for roughly 60 operations staff like food service workers, bus drivers and security officers. As for teaching staff, he said those positions are quickly being filled.
“We've had some significant hiring over the last day,” Miller said. “On Monday we were at 97 vacancies for teachers, and we know that we've moved that needle quite significantly this week.”
Miller said he’s greatly concerned about filling bilingual teaching vacancies where there are some 15 open positions.
"I’m particularly worried and use this as a plug for recruitment for science, bilingual,” he said. “That's an area where we're worried about where we are right now, because we have about three vacancies. But we're struggling to find candidates for those science positions.”
Overall, the district needs more certified teachers, he said, adding that the Human Capital department has dedicated efforts to help paraprofessionals and teaching assistants become teachers to help fill those gaps.
