LANSING, Mich. — Officials with the Lansing School District said the pandemic hasn’t made it easy to fill open positions, and now they’re coming up with recruitment strategies to get more people working for the district.
“The number is definitely higher than it’s been since my tenure here with the district,” said Human Resources Director Suzy Corbin.
Corbin said right now, the district has more than 175 open positions and a huge chunk of those are teaching positions. She said part of that is a drop in enrollment in teacher training programs.
“In the state of Michigan, the graduation rate in the programs has declined drastically," Corbin said, "and, because of that, we’re having a hard time getting positions filled and applicants.”
Corbin said that problem also stems from the pandemic. Over the past two years, the district has seen a high resignation rate among staff members.
For example, 13 staff members resigned this past February, compared with 7 in February of 2020. Corbin said August 2021 was the high resignation month for district, with more than 60 people resigning.
“We saw a lot of people leaving in August, and I think that is because people were waiting to see if we were going to come back in person or virtual,” Corbin said.
The district hopes to fill the open positions by the fall semester, and they’re hoping the pool of new hires is diverse. Corbin said this is extremely important, in part because the district has welcomed more than 200 refugee students.
“We’ve been looking at our refugee population and seeing who from other countries may have those teaching certifications, and they just need help or support or the time to get a Michigan teaching certificate,” Corbin said.
Corbin believes face-to-face interaction will be the most valuable thing when it comes to hiring for those jobs.
“We’ve been attending all of the college career fairs,” Corbin said. So Michigan State, Eastern Michigan. We’ve done Western and Central and we have some more coming up in April."
Below is a list of the Lansing School District’s upcoming job fairs.
