There are hundreds of open positions at the Washoe County School District (WCSD).
According to WCSD, there are 87 bus driver vacancies, more than 90 vacancies in its Nutrition Services Department, 190 teacher aides positions open and approximately 139 teacher openings.
With all the jobs needing to be filled, it’s no surprise some current staff are feeling more burnt out lately.
“Education work is not easy to begin with,” said Chase Carpenter, an English teacher at Spanish Springs High School. “"Every year, every month, I just feel like we're being told do more with less."
Carpenter said, many educators, like himself, are working overtime and they’re frequently filling in without a lot of notice.
“Ordinarily we have a block of prep time which is allotted to us to plan or prepare. And rapidly and regularly we are asked to fill in for other classes where there are no subs. In some cases it's a class where the teacher's out and there's no sub. Or in some cases there are unfilled positions where a teacher was never hired for that class." He added.
Carpenter said he is concerned about student’s education, fearing a suffering curriculum if teachers are overworked and overwhelmed.
“The teaching becomes education by work sheet, or education by film strip, or movie. The teachers don't have enough time to give personal attention to all of their students, for their academic needs, for their social and emotional needs. Every student just becomes a smaller blip on each teachers radar when teachers are over stressed and over taxed."
Carpenter has been a teacher for 13 years. He is confident education is a career he plans to stay in, however, he it’s easy to lose morale.
“I look at my friends, and families and co-workers, and I think how much more mental strain are we dealing with here than my friends, and families and co-workers who get off at 5 o’ clock and they don’t have their work hanging over them.” The high school teacher said. “Whether it’s papers to grade, or just the weight of dealing with a system that seems to be failing.”
The bus driver shortage and its affects on transportation services is another issue weighing heavily on the minds of parents, students, and teachers. On Tuesday WCSD will be suspending bus services for certain areas one week at a time, because of staffing issues.
“We just don’t like how it’s affecting the disadvantaged populations. It’s disproportionately on them,” Carpenter said. “It’s making our jobs harder too because now we are asked to make our curriculum go forward in meaningful directions when our classes might be half full, we might be missing a lot of students. How can we be in two places at once and teach the kids before us and also have meaningful curriculum for kids who can’t make it to school.”
And as if hiring wasn’t hard enough, keeping employees seems to be another challenge for the school district.
Carpenter referred to a recent example, saying “We're also facing just like a continual loss of staff. Literally this week I had a colleague, a first year teacher who announced that he's quitting at the end of March. What are his six classes going to go to?”
"I want to make it clear that these problems are not about the pandemic. The pandemic made them worst, but these are systemic problems that aren't going away even as the pandemic gradually (hopefully) recedes."
Many people, including school district officials, acknowledge that low wages are causing issues with retainment and hiring.
“Whether it's the bus drivers, the teachers, whatever, custodians, there are people leaving this industry because they can do similar work or in some case easier work for equal or more money.” Said the English teacher.
The WCSD Superintendent spoke 2 News about hiring issues, and she said, “There has been wage increases across our region for the last two years. And we cannot compete with that with the current funding for the last two years."
McNeill said the school district will continue holding job fairs and advocate for more funding from the state during the next legislative session. However carpenter believes solving the problem requires a community working together for a solution, and a push on many levels of society.
"I don't know what it's exactly going to look like, protests? Marches at the capitol? But I'd like to see, the next march at the capitol I don't just want to see teachers, I want to see members of the public marching with us." He said. “Families need to recognize what happens in the class room affects their sons and daughters.
