Oklahoma Schools Still Looking To Hire At Least 200 Teachers Ahead Of Academic Year

Students are preparing to head back to the classroom this week despite the Oklahoma State School Boards Association reporting at 200 teaching openings across the state. 

The teacher shortage has been an ongoing issue here in Oklahoma and across the nation. 

Oklahoma City Public Schools is looking to fill around 80 openings. Moore and Edmond are looking for around 30 teachers while Putnam City Public Schools has 10 openings.

The OSSBA’s annual teacher shortage survey will give a more accurate look at the job openings across the state. The organization said it will have data available from the survey next week.

The 200 openings do not account for some jobs that may have "expired" on the job board without being filled.

Putnam City Schools chief communications officer Jeff Bardach said the district is recruiting in hopes of filling those positions. 

"In a perfect world, it would be great to have 100% of our classroom teachers filled before the start of the year, but no student is going to show up on Wednesday morning and not have a teacher," Bardach said.

As Putnam City Public Schools work to fill the remaining positions, they are utilizing their substitute pool and moving personnel around. Some students may be part of a larger class but those larger classes would be temporary, Bardach said.

"We're doing everything in our power to make sure it's the absolute best possible situation for our students on Wednesday morning," Bardach said.

For a link to the Oklahoma State School Boards Association job board, click here.