OSHKOSH (NBC 26) — With three weeks until the first day of school, the Oshkosh Area School District still has about 80 open positions.
- OASD is actively hiring to have a full staff before the start of the school year
- As of Monday, Aug. 12, there are over 10 open classroom positions and over 10 paraprofessional positions.
- Assistant superintendent, Julie Conrad-Peters, says she believes the district will have a full teaching staff before Sept. 3.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story edited for web)
Heather Swenson has been working for the Oshkosh Area School District for 12 years.
Currently, she’s a second grade teacher at Franklin Elementary.
Swenson says it’s important to be full staff so kids can get the attention they need.
“If you don’t have enough support, or if you don’t have enough hands, you kind of feel like you can’t meet the needs of all the students, you get stressed out, you feel really lost, and the students feel that too," she says.
While Franklin Elementary School is fully staffed for the 2024-25 school year, the Oshkosh Area School District has about 80 open positions as of Monday afternoon.
“A little bit better than we were last year," assistant superintendent Julie Conrad-Peters says.
The 80 open positions are listed on the district's job posting website, WeCan, and include positions from coaching staff to food service.
Conrad-Peters says the most important openings to fill are the teaching positions and paraprofessional positions.
“Specifically in special education, career and technical education, family and consumer science– we are absolutely hiring, those are our high need areas," she says.
On Monday morning, there were 19 open teaching positions and 14 paraprofessional positions.
Oshkosh Area School District has been holding job fairs and actively recruiting throughout the summer, and Conrad-Peters says they are hiring more people everyday.
She says she's confident they'll have a full teaching staff before the first day of school.
“When we have open classroom positions, there's always that little bit of like, 'Are we going to be ready to go?' We always seem to make it work, and if we don't have a classroom position filled, we have highly qualified substitutes that can help us.”
You can see open positions in OASD here. They are also looking for volunteers to help with reading and literacy.
