Retention and recruitment of subsitute teachers in Geary USD 475 continues to be an issue.

As part of the strategic plan objectives and goals, one of the goals reads:  Promote and practice shared responsibility among stakeholders for achieving district goals.

Brian Field, Board member, said, “It has to be a community effort,” when it comes to bringing new employees and keeping them in the district. “People have to want to live here, stay here – there has to be that quality of life.”

Superintendent Dr. Corbin Witt and the other Board members in attendance agreed with Field.

A Witt said that at this time, he and the Executive Director of Human Resources for the District, Bridget Seeman, are looking for other innovative ways to meet the need of recruiting and retention rather than hiring a new person/creating a new position.

Witt said his comments were in lieu of the $340,000 financial loss to the school district this year.

The Board members, whom were overwhelmingly leary of hiring a new person under a Recruitment and Retention Coordinator position, agreed.

Witt said that he still supports the idea to hire a new person to satisfy that need in the district but it willing to shelve the issue for another year.

“If we’re still struggling [with it] a year from now, we can revisit the idea,” said Witt.

As of March, William Clark, Chief Operations Officer of Business and Operations, said that new military families to the area are given a list of the available positions in the District.

One concern of the Board was that teachers would be forced to once again be burdened by the lack of subsitutes available.

Witt said that interestingly, “millenials” (aged 20 to 30) value self-exploration, travel, free time with family and friends much more than “baby boomers” did.

The mindset of “baby boomers” according to Witt, was that in your 20s and 30s it was about settling and becoming financially stable and solidified; but millenials spend much more time in self-exploration.

Witt said that understanding that concept helped him to understand that younger teachers are going to utilize their subsitutues much more than teachers from the “baby boomer” era did when they were young.

So rather than limiting teachers’ ability to take time off, the issue still remains on how to increase the number of subsitutes in the District.