Lenawee County school districts head into 2022-23 school year with nearly full staffing

The classrooms are prepared. School supply drives have been held throughout the area. The fall sports season is underway and the conclusion of summer break is upon us.

The beginning of the 2022-23 school year starts tomorrow for public schools in Lenawee County. It is a school year many district leaders and administrators said they are excited to see begin, as it is the first year since 2018-19 to be back to seemingly normal due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is also a school year that sees most — if not all the county districts — nearly fully staffed heading into the first day of school, amongst ongoing concerns of a nationwide and statewide shortage of teachers.

“Every district in (Lenawee County) saw a fair amount of change and turnover from the end of the last school year and heading into our new school year,” said Lenawee Intermediate School District Superintendent Mark Haag. “The good news is that many of our districts have been able to fill a majority of those positions.”

Overall, Haag said, educators and district administrators appear optimistic for the upcoming school year and are eager to fully return to the classroom style of education, without jumping through several hoops because of pandemic protocol.

“I think that eagerness to get back into the classroom and get back to the traditional style of teaching is reflective of our broader society,” he said.

Haag and the other administrators and educators in Lenawee County have been keeping tabs on the trends of teachers leaving the education workforce and not returning. Luckily for Lenawee County, while there has been turnover, most teaching positions are staffed, even if hires were approved a matter of days ago.

The LISD, for example, with a full- and part-time staff of 425 employees, is sitting close to 95% fully staffed. The LISD, Haag said, is promoting “now hiring” advertisements for transportation and substitute roles for the most part. Another need, he said — and one that is not fairly new to this school year — is the need for speech and language pathologists, classroom teaching assistants and school psychologists.

“Even in those situations, we are planning around them,” he said. “At the ISD, we are sitting fairly comfortably with the educators and leaders in our classroom. There have been parts of the country where there is this grim picture for teacher vacancies, but it’s not the case, by and large, in Lenawee County and at the ISD.”

During a meeting earlier this month between Haag and the local school district superintendents, there were no cries of “mass panic” when preparing for this school year, he said.

There are four superintendents heading into their first official start of the school year as leaders of their respective districts: Daniel Patterson at Addison Community Schools, Nate Parker at Adrian Public Schools, Kevin Beazley at Clinton Community Schools and Jennifer Ellis at Morenci Area Schools. Beazley and Ellis are the most recent of the hires with both of them being approved this summer — Beazley July 20 and Ellis July 26.

Beazley had been serving as Clinton’s interim superintendent because of the resignation of former Clinton Superintendent James Cracraft, who accepted a position as superintendent of Gaylord Community Schools. The interim tag was removed when the Clinton Board of Education approved Beazley as the district’s next leader.

Ellis, meanwhile, came to Morenci from Clinton Elementary School where she was principal. She succeeds former Morenci Superintendent Mike McAran, who was set to retire from the district June 30, but ended up signing a one-year contract to become Britton Deerfield Schools’ middle school principal for this school year.

With a staff of more than 100 teachers, maintenance workers, bus drivers and support staff, Beazley said he is looking forward to the excitement of the new school year beginning to carry over into the entire school year.

“We have a nice vibe happening within the district,” he said. “We have a great sense of team, and I think we all are feeling that sense of normalcy now that some of the things related to the pandemic have eased up a bit. We’re ready to rock and roll come Monday.”

Clinton schools is fully staffed for the 2022-23 academic year. Its latest hires consisted of Ellis’ successor as elementary principal in Adam Jurasek, who was approved Aug. 19, and an English position at Clinton Middle School, which was filled Aug. 9.

Beazley, who was formerly Clinton High School’s principal, noted Katie Bennett is now the high school’s principal.

“There is for sure definite relief and a weight off my shoulders that we filled not only my former position, but also our elementary principal vacancy and some other positions this summer,” he said. “It is exciting to me that our district is one that people want to work in and be a part of.”

Adrian Public Schools made several teaching and leadership adjustments during the summer and recently filled some additional roles across the school district during its Aug. 12 job fair.

The district hired one new principal, 10 new teachers for the 2022-23 school year, five mental health professionals, six staff members for Head Start, one strength and conditioning coach, one theater coordinator and eight paraprofessionals, as well as a handful of new athletic coaches and food service employees.

“These (hires) were not all generated from the job fair, but throughout the summer as well,” said Nikki Culley, Adrian schools director of human resources.

As of Aug. 23, Adrian was fully staffed in terms of teachers, Parker said.

“We are still looking to hire some paraprofessionals, but other than that, we are good to go,” he said. “I give a lot of credit this summer to Nikki (Culley) and Kathy Westfall (assistant superintendent and chief financial officer) for the work they have done to get those needed jobs posted and to be filled with some good and quality people.”

The teacher shortage has become a national crisis, according to a recent news release and study conducted by Miami University of Oxford, Ohio. The pandemic “exacerbated the shortage,” the release and study says, but other factors such as burnout, lack of adequate preparation and support, increased school violence, and political divides over curriculum and content are also at play.

Lenawee County’s local legislators are trying to make sure education is as strong as can be in the county.

Sen. Dale Zorn, R-Onsted, announced the state Legislature is removing barriers that might keep qualified teachers out of the classroom. Senate Bill 118 was signed into law as Public Act 15 of 2021, which removes the financial burden on school districts trying to address teacher and counselor shortages in their schools by allowing districts to employ teachers during the credentialing process and reduces or eliminates penalties imposed on a district if it employs someone who is not fully credentialed.

Senate Bill 726 would also help with the substitute teacher shortage, Zorn said in a communication. The bill would reduce the wait time from 12 to four months for retired school employees to return to work as substitute teachers without impacting their retirement benefits and eliminates the cap on earnings for those who return to substitute teach.

These struggles and some others are something Parker said he’s noticed throughout his tenure in education, which spans more than 20 years — 17 of those as an administrator.

“Teaching continues to be a challenge across the state. I feel very fortunate that we at Adrian are staffed,” he said. “It is our goal as a district to make teaching a profession that teachers want to be a part of.”

With the addition of mental health specialists at each building across the Adrian district, as well as a focus on providing a variety of extracurriculars for students to pique their engagement with the schools, Parker said Adrian is set up for continued success in the classroom.

“We continue to expand throughout the district,” he said. “First and foremost, we have outstanding teachers in our classrooms. It is really outstanding to see them do what they do for our students. That alone will pay dividends in the classroom.”

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Lenawee County school districts have nearly full staffing