School needs to hire more teachers
By Neal A. Shipman
Farmer Editor
When Steve Holen, McKenzie County Public School District No. 1 superintendent, goes shopping for 20 new teachers that have been approved for the upcoming 2018-19 school year, he is going to need to find a pretty big shopping cart.
On his list of teacher needs are two for the first grade, two for the third grade and three for the sixth grade. He also has four openings in core subjects and three other openings for elective teachers in the middle school.
And the list of teachers doesn’t stop there as at the high school he needs to find two English and math teachers, as well as a social studies, a science, and a business/technology teacher. And for good measure, he’s also looking for an activities director.
“The number of new teachers that the district is going to need next year is being driven by our enrollment numbers,” states Holen. “And it’s being driven by our desire to provide an educational opportunity that our students would find in similar sized Class A schools.”
The main reason that Holen says the district needs to increase its current full-time teaching staff of 105 teachers by 20 is because of the increase in student numbers.
“We got to 160 students in kindergarten this year,” states Holen. “That’s a big number. And we have 152 students in our second grade class.”
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