These Two Things Might Be Shrinking The Number Of Teacher Vacancies In Kansas

Education officials in Kansas are taking a two-pronged approach to reducing teacher shortages: raising pay and fast-tracking teaching assistants and other professionals to the front of the classroom.

Last year, Kansas schools had more than 600 vacant positions. Many of the openings were concentrated in rural areas and the state’s most urban districts.

Low pay has been blamed for much of the trouble attracting and retaining teachers. But education officials believe they have an opportunity to tackle that with the recent boosts to state funding.

Lawmakers have approved multi-year school funding increases amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in response to a long-running lawsuit over school spending. That has given districts a chance to offer teacher raises that could be difficult to fit into school budgets in the past.

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