Park County School District 1 is turning an eye to staff recruitment and retention, a growing problem in the state, as part of its new strategic plan. 

The district’s draft strategic plan has three goals: to “create a positive, healthy and engaged learning community that improves student performance and fuels success”; prepare students to be good citizens who are civically minded, critical thinkers and problem solvers; and recruit, train and retain high quality staff.

“I feel really good about our strategic focus,” Superintendent Curtis said at the Aug. 26 school board meeting. “It actually I feel is a slightly narrowed focus from our last strategic plan, which had too many working parts, and I think we did a really good job of meeting most of those.”

The proposed plan includes aspects of the old plan that are still important, while incorporating changes based on district and stakeholder conversations.

Curtis added that he likes the new plan’s focus on recruiting and retaining high quality staff — in his opinion this is one of the largest threats the district will face in the next five years. Difficulty recruiting and retaining staff has been a growing issue in Wyoming over the past 10 years and the district is going to need to adapt, Curtis said.

The strategic plan proposes strengthening recruitment and retention pipelines by forming partnerships with colleges and universities, developing student teacher, internships and “grow your own” pathways, focusing on housing options and regularly evaluating and
adjusting salary structures among other steps and strategies.

Wyoming used to pay teachers significantly higher than surrounding states, but this is no longer the case, Curtis said in an interview. Utah has passed Wyoming in pay, he said, and applicants from South Dakota and Colorado have become more rare as these states have also worked to pay their teachers more.

“Ten years ago we might have gotten 20 Montana applicants for an elementary job — we might get one or two now — that spigot has closed.”

The district doesn’t struggle with retention, but recruiting has been getting harder every year, Curtis said. As a general rule, 10 years ago a job teaching at the elementary school would draw over 100 applicants, last year a fifth grade position had less than 20 and the year before another fifth grade teaching position had around 30 applicants, Curtis said. While some positions have been difficult to recruit for a decade, positions with “historically abundant applicants,” are decreasing.

While the district has still had some success recruiting staff they will need to do something different with recruitment practices, and Curtis likes that as a focus in the strategic plan, he said at the meeting.

“Our recruitment efforts have been much more fruitful than some of our neighboring districts,” Curtis said. “I don’t know that we’ve ever had any of our postings go with no applicants.”

The strategic plan will head to its second and possibly final reading at the Sept. 16 board meeting. To view the proposed plan visit  park1public.ic-board.com/attachments/6da00525-bff5-4264-a8a5-4e18c83d2bd3.pdf.