Mountain Towns Face Extra Hurdles Combating Staff Shortages in Schools

SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) -- The pandemic might be slowing down in Colorado, but staffing shortages have not. Amie Baca-Oehlert, president of Colorado Education Association , explained this is a statewide issue, made worse by the pandemic, but especially difficult to fix in mountain communities.

"We literally have places right now where our educators, if they're sick, they can't call off because they have time a hard time finding a sub," Baca-Oehlert said. It's an issue Summit County School District is working around, for now. When a teacher calls out, there's now a 60% sub rate. Meaning, 60% of the time they have someone to cover for them. The other 40% of the time, other teachers are picking up the slack. They're compensated for their extra work.

But Dr. Grant Schmidt, chief human resources officer of Summit County School District, knows this is not a long-term fix.

"That's a great short-term Band-Aid," Schmidt said.

Part of the staffing issues stem from the lack of affordability for educators (both teachers and support staff like janitorial, bus drivers and kitchen workers). Schmidt said they have the fourth-highest starting salaries out of all Colorado districts, but that's a necessity when you can't live nearby because of a well recognized housing crisis. Costs of living in Summit County have skyrocketed in recent years and left few places for low to middle class workers to stay.

"I was speaking to somebody recently in Basalt who is a single person who was sharing a one-bedroom apartment with five other guys," Baca-Oehlert said.

Baca-Oehlert called the staffing shortages across the state a crisis and called for more funding this year from the state legislature. Schmidt stopped short of calling this a teacher crisis, but did say it was an educator crisis, with a desperate need for support staff specifically in the district.

While getting more teachers is a goal of Summit County School District, getting more support staff is the main goal. It's now planning to utilize incentivized training to generate a larger pool of subs to draw from, taking in any interested adult even if they do not have a background in education.

"If you're not educated anyway, but you might want to substitute, you go to a two-hour training, and they'll pay you $300 for attending," Schmidt explained. "And we're hoping that will create some interest to come over and be a substitute."

Schmidt also is planning to put together a housing cheat sheet for new employees, working with the county to identify affordable living situations for people working in the district so they're not priced out of living in the high country.