Hiring teachers and other staff members to fill vacancies is likely to take longer than usual this year, Wake County Public School System Superintendent Cathy Moore told the county school board Tuesday.

“The pool for hiring is not there,” Moore told the school board. “We’re likely to see vacancies lasting for longer periods of time before being filled. I think the pool will be slim for a while.”

Other WRAL Top Stories

The school system will need to work within the constraints of that, Moore said.

But school board members said Tuesday they want to see what else the school system can do to recruit and retain school employees, whether through changes to policies, finding alternative course offerings for students or increasing flexibility around some scheduling.

Board members said they were concerned with hiring issues affecting the quality of instruction, courses being offered and students’ time on school buses. The time on school buses is impacting magnet school enrollment and students’ behavior on those buses, Board Member Roxie Cash said.

Board Member Jim Martin also noted that some schools are worse off than others and that stopgap measures to cover teachers could result in lower-quality offerings at those schools.

“This is an equity issue,” Martin said. “If we saw a map of this, it would not look even across the district.”

Martin asked school system officials to return in the future to discuss employee retention efforts, in addition to the recruitment efforts mentioned Tuesday.

Moore said teacher vacancies are on average just about two openings per school but are not spread evenly, with as many as 10 vacancies in some places.

The school system has shortened its application process and is holding a fall job fair earlier than usual for January 2023 hires, A.J. Mutillo, district assistant superintendent for human resources, told the board.

Board Member Monika Johnson-Hostler cautioned, however, that parent patience may be wearing thin.

Two high schools in Johnson-Hostler’s southern school board district are each missing 10 teachers. That means many students aren’t getting permanent teachers for their advanced placement courses and other courses, as principals have adjusted staffing.

“I believe we owe it to them — I owe it to them — to get answers to these families,” Johnson-Hostler said. She wondered if schools could enroll students in the state-run virtual school or if schools could use dual enrollment with colleges to help provide advanced courses.

Some schools can move students into the state-run North Carolina Virtual Public School, district Assistant Superintendent for Academics Drew Cook said. But there is a deadline to do so, and some students may not succeed in virtual school, Cook said.

Johnson-Hostler didn’t name the two high schools, but her district has three: Garner High, South Garner High and Willow Springs High.

Other school systems in the state have faced hiring struggles. The North Carolina School Superintendents’ Association reported an increase in teacher vacancies as of Aug. 15, compared to the same time last year — a 54% rise, from 2,355 to 3,619, in the 98 school systems that responded to the survey.

The Wake County Public School System reported 343 teacher vacancies as of Sept. 13, which is 34% more than the 256 reported Oct. 7 of the last school year. It’s a total higher than the vacancies reported every month of the last school year except for Nov. 1, when 354 vacancies were reported.

Vacancies for bus drivers haven’t decreased since the school year began and remain higher than at any time last school year. The school system reported 267 vacancies Sept. 13, down from 268 Sept. 1 and up from 266 Aug. 12.

Vacancies for instructional assistants and child nutrition services workers have continued at improved levels since major pay increases approved last winter. For those positions, vacancies are 6.3% and 13.1%, respectively.

Cash said the decline in bus routes and bus drivers over the last several years is now turning families away from the magnet schools the district offers to ensure evenly spread academic opportunities across the county.

“We’ve actually set up the schedule with our transportation to put them on a bus for two hours to go downtown,” Cash said. The school system also depends on that transportation running smoothly to achieve its own goals, she said. “It’s like our whole system is dependent on our transportation system.”

Moore said she’s having conversations with other district officials about reducing behavioral issues on buses and identifying the routes with the most issues to target solutions.

It’s possible former bus drivers who still have licenses — but who have taken other school system jobs — can get back to driving, Moore said. One employee will do so soon, with a bus being taken to them after school.

Board Member Karen Carter also urged officials to think about ways to hire bus drivers who only do morning routes or who only do afternoon routes.

District Transportation Director Robert Snidemiller said few drivers have asked for that flexibility in the past but the district is open to discussing options with them.

Carter said she’d heard some drivers “just couldn’t handle that split shift anymore” but weren’t clear they had another option for driving.

Moore noted the district, though still actively hiring for dozens of drivers, only has so much capacity to increase bus routes.

The district has taken some buses out of service and has repairmen vacancies and delays in parts being shipped, Moore said.

“We don’t have as many buses available as we think we might have,” Moore said.