Hudson School District looking to fill dozens of support staff positions

Schools across the country are preparing to welcome kids back, but many will have to do so with fewer staff members. The Hudson School District is working to fill about 80 support staff positions by the last week in August.

“Staffing became challenging before the pandemic, but the pandemic has certainly exacerbated staffing,” said Tracy Habisch-Ahlin, the school district’s assistant director of community relations. “I would say prior to the pandemic, we would not have had 80 positions, [instead] we may have been looking at 30 positions to fill.”

About 10 of the open support staff positions are within Habisch-Ahlin’s department. She supervises community services, including before- and after-school child care.

She explained there is currently a waitlist for before-school and after-school care because they don’t have enough staff. The list has about 100 families on it.

“We obviously want to keep within a staffing ratio that is safe and also to be able to do the programming that we want to do for kids,” she said.

This is the first year the district has needed a waitlist for those services, according to Habisch-Ahlin.

“In past years, we’ve always been able to serve all of our families that needed care,” she said. “That’s really hard when you have families that are calling you saying, ‘I really need this care because of my job, that if I don’t have before or after school care, what am I going to do?’ and that hurts when you can’t be able to say, ‘Yep, I’ve got it, I’ve got it covered for you.’”

There are also about 40 open food services and janitorial positions. The district is using incentives to entice candidates to apply. Food services workers and their families receive free meals.

“I think we’ve become very flexible with our food services department,” said Bonnie Stegmann, the district’s chief financial and operations officer. “We are trying to combine positions maybe with other departments to create full-time positions. We also, with our custodial positions, we’re looking at flexible hours.”

Stegmann said they’re now offering some custodian candidates four 10-hour shifts instead of a traditional five-day work week.

“In the last week, we’ve really put a blitz out to recruit employees with some of the benefits for positions,” Stegmann said. “We’ve had a lot of applications.”

In the competitive market, some candidates are dropping off before the interview process is complete.

“It’s definitely based on their terms, what fits their schedule,” Stegmann said.

There are also some positions where those recruitment tools aren’t necessarily an option. Assistant Director of Student Services Jordan Wood told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS it’s been challenging to attract candidates for the 19 open special education paraprofessional roles.

“It’s definitely an employee market right now, so they’re able to come in and say, ‘This is exactly what I’m willing to do, and this is not what I’m willing to do,’” Wood said.

He added, “I can’t provide a lot of flexibility. Kids are here from bell to bell, and that’s when I need adults here, so we struggle with that compared to the private sector, work-from-home, flex-my-day kind of benefits that other people can provide.”

Other school districts face similar staffing shortages, which is also stretching the candidate pool.

“It’s not just us, it’s everywhere,” Wood said. “You can be a special education paraprofessional in a lot of places. You can work with kids in different capacities in your own community without having to drive, and the commute time and the price of gas is a factor, as well as what’s available for housing in the community.”

Wood encourages those interested in the open positions to apply. He explained candidates don’t need a special certification; they just need a high school diploma.

“These positions are for special people who want to work with kids who have distinct needs,” Wood said. “I’m very concerned [about staffing]. I was looking through all of my high school students’ IEPs page by page, trying to determine what exactly we need to do and how we can do that with who I know we have today.”

The district is offering a $250 signing bonus to support staff, according to Habisch-Ahlin.

“One of the challenges we face as a school district in all of our support staff positions is the competition with private sector, we don’t have unlimited funds,” she said. “We do have to be cognizant about what our taxpayers are willing to support.”

For more information about the openings, click here.