Let’s be real about staffing needs at Park City Schools

Wednesday the Park City School Board met in a morning meeting to discuss staffing needs at Park City Schools. The bottom line is that there are not enough teachers and there are not enough substitutes. Human Resources Director Shad Sorenson offered potential solutions that included limiting meetings and free food. As he spoke, I couldn’t help but think that he was describing Google in 2010.

It’s no longer 2010 and Park City isn’t the Google campus. Having worked in that sort of environment, I can’t claim that Mr. Sorenson is completely wrong, but I do know that the benefits of that environment last about 3 weeks.

Here are the facts.

There is no short-term solution. Creating a culture that makes talent want to work for you takes years. Whatever we do today won’t be felt for 3 to 5 years or more.

The issue, at the beginning of the year, where out-of-district teachers’ kids were no longer granted the ability to go to our schools was horrible at the time. Now, that decision is severely harming our schools. It’s not a good culture.

Likewise, they say we don’t have enough substitutes. Yet, within the last two years, we outsourced our substitutes to EDUStaff in Michigan. Previously, a teacher might have reached out to a trusted substitute who would come in and take their place. It didn’t always work perfectly but it generally worked. Now, we are looking at our temp agency. It’s not working. Better stated, it’s working worse. Again, it’s not a good culture.

During the meeting school board member Andrew Caplan said, “we need to change the model… we need to look at this differently.” He cited subtitute teachers who are being paid $17 who could make more at Smiths stocking shelves. He’s right.

I don’t believe keeping good teachers is about free food or installing video games in the teachers’ lounge. It’s much simpler and also much harder than that.

It’s about a good culture. It’s about trust.