Knox County Schools has nearly 100 teacher vacancies and needs dozens of assistants

Areena Arora, Knoxville News Sentinel
·4 min read
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Nearly two months into the new school year, Knox County Schools is still seeking to hire more than 250 teachers, teaching assistants and tutors.

The district has made some progress. Last month, that number was around 300.

To fill in some of the gaps, administrators and the school board hired an outside company to fill 63 special education teaching assistant positions. And KCS is actively recruiting to hire for the other open slots.

Here are some of the open positions advertised by the district:

  • Across all grades, the district has 93 open teacher positions.

  • Math teachers for middle and high schools are a core need. There are seven open math teacher jobs for middle and high schools combined, with minimum starting pay of $44,800 for teachers without experience or an advanced degree.

  • Dozens of literacy tutors are needed. The district has 42 openings, which is down from 52 last month. Minimum pay for the position is $125 a day.

When there's a teacher vacancy, each school works with the district to determine the "most appropriate plan for their school and their situation," district spokeswoman Carly Harrington told Knox News.

To fill the vacancies for math and special education teaching positions, the district offers signing bonuses of $5,000 for math teachers and $7,000 for special education, Harrington said.

Which Knox County Schools have the most vacancies?

Job openings are spread throughout the district, but some schools are worse off than others. Schools with a high number of vacancies are:

  • Austin-East Magnet High School: 15 vacancies

  • Fulton High School: 15 vacancies

  • West High School: 15 vacancies

  • South-Doyle High School: 14 vacancies

  • Central High School: 13 vacancies

  • Among middle schools, Northwest Middle School has the highest number of vacancies with nine, including a math teacher and three special education teaching assistants.

Other Knox County Schools staffing shortages

The district remains short 25 bus drivers, although there are six in the pipeline who will start work soon. That is down from a shortage of 31 drivers two months ago.

The district contracts with 57 independent providers to drive about 355 buses. The district does not directly set driver pay, but the district pays between $46,905 and $54,870 per year to contractors, depending on the size of each bus.

A shortage of custodians continues to plague the district. There are 87 openings, down slightly down from 89 openings two months ago. Custodians are paid between $12.20 and $14.11 an hour, depending on their experience.

Counting all the different types of jobs overall, the district has 383 openings. This is down from nearly 500 vacancies at the start of the school year.

What are the salary ranges?

For certified teachers, the district advertises a salary range of $44,800 for beginners to $77,552 for those with experience and advanced degrees.

That could change in the future. Administrators are conducting a yearlong study on pay and will come up with solutions to help avoid large staffing shortages and boost retention. The study will look at all employees, including teachers, teaching assistants and custodians.

In March, the school board approved a contract for a salary study with Tallahassee, Florida-based consulting firm Evergreen Solutions. That contract was expanded to include a job classification study earlier this month.

"What Evergreen, the consultant, discovered in digging into our salary schedule and position descriptions is that we've got a lot of positions in the district," Jennifer Hemmelgarn, Knox County Schools' assistant superintendent of business and talent, told the board at a Sept. 5 meeting.

The job class study compares salaries to job duties across different position titles and levels, she added. The scope of this work includes comparing two different supervisory positions' responsibilities, for instance.

The district is paying Evergreen $123,000 to study its pay and make recommendations, which is less than half of the amount the district originally budgeted for the study.

How do I find out which positions are open?

Open positions at Knox County Schools, including job description and salaries, are online at knoxschools.munisselfservice.com.

To speed up the recruitment process, the district has a quick interest form that helps applicants connect with a recruitment team, Harrington said.

The interest form can be found online at KnoxSchools.org/recruitment

The district has 58,873 students across 94 schools and employs 4,994 teachers and staff members, according to the latest available data from the Tennessee Department of Education. Out of the employee total, 4,352 are teachers, adding up to a ratio of about 14 students for every teacher.

Areena Arora, data and investigative reporter for Knox News, can be reached by email at areena.arora@knoxnews.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as, Twitter @AreenaArora.

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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Knox County Schools has nearly 100 teacher vacancies to fill