District innovates to solve staffing crisis

Being a student teacher in Creston is about to get a lot more exciting.

The Creston Community School District Board of Directors discussed a number of new programs aimed at bringing more teachers to the school district on Monday. One such program is the Pathway to Being a Panther agreement.

With the goal of helping student teachers with their education and hiring them once graduated, the Pathway to Being a Panther agreement would help student teachers pay for a portion of their tuition.

According to the agreement, “CCSD will pay the tuition expense, not to exceed $10,000.” In addition, the district would provide a monthly living stipend of $700, not to exceed four months.

CCSD Superintendent Deron Stender explained the hope was to bring more student teachers to the district, especially local students.

“We were like, is there a way we can do this on the flip side of it and attract teachers out of college, preferably teachers and kids that are coming through our system,” Stender said. “We can say, ‘hey, go to school, come back here and we’ll help you with your student teaching, we’ll help you get the process, we get to basically indoctrinate them with our methods and philosophies as a student teacher and into our system.”

The other side of this agreement would include offering the student teachers jobs in the district. With recent teacher shortages, this could help the district have a full staff.

“As a district, we know that we average at least 12 new licensed staff members every year,” Stender said. “We want the pipeline to preferably come from our schools or our regional schools because those are the people that will come back here and most likely stay here after we’ve invested in them.”

However, just because someone is student teaching in the district doesn’t mean they will be entering this agreement.

“We’re going to be looking for people in positions that we know we need someone,” Stender said. “This is not for everybody. We get to select and choose. Just take our math positions. We have a hard time filling anything right now, but there are some that are a greater challenge than others.”

As this program is entirely created by the CCSD, some kinks are still being worked out. However, they hope it will eventually help boost their staff. At least, until other schools to implementing the program too.

“As far as I know, there are no other districts that are out there doing this. This is not based on what somebody else is doing, this is based on what we thought it would take to attract a student teacher to come to Creston, to want to take it one step further and accept a position in Creston,” Stender said. “This allows us to go out there and find them. I think we’re going to be a hot item until the other school districts pick up on what we’re doing and start doing something similar and it becomes a competitive process for us.”

No action was taken on this program.

Another program to help in the recruiting process would be an early notice incentive. Stender explained that, often times, staff announce their resignation or retirement later on in the year. This makes it difficult to recruit the required number of teachers. To combat this, licensed employees will recieve a stipend for early resignations: $500 if done in November, $400 in December and $300 in January.

“If we can get out there ahead of time in the recruitment process, we’ll be able to track people,” Stender said. “That gives us more time to get out there and work on trying to recruit licensed staff members to come to Creston.”

The early notice stipend was approved by the board.

In addition to these programs, the board approved the allotment of a $500 stipend to teachers supervising student teachers in order to encourage more involvement. No action was taken on this program, with the boarding looking to get more information.

In other school board news...

Early Childhood Center Principal Callie Anderson and Elementary School Principal Casey Tanner both reported higher enrollment numbers in comparison to last year at this time. The ECC’s increase is likely due to the merge between the ECC and Headstart preschool program.

The school board approved the September 2023 list of contracts and resignations.

Resignations: Ashley Wantland, para; Ashley James, para; Stephanie Todd, para.

Contracts: Cole Crawford, head eigth grade boys basketball coach; Connie Swanson, para; Draven Pierce, para; Sapphire Tyler, para; Stephanie Baucom, para; Angela Cummins, para; Cassie Kay, para; Bailey Kuster, para; Joan Miller, cook; Chelsea Sorenson, custodian; Julie Ferber, custodian; Tim Lyons, crossing guard; Toby Williams, transportation.

Terminations: Brendalee Lyell-Keate, custodian.