Milwaukee Public Schools remains short-staffed two weeks after the start of the school year.
A wave of retirements and resignations opened up 500 teaching positions in MPS. It filled most of the vacancies, but a few dozen opened at the last minute, when teachers it had hired changed their minds. The openings are primarily in hard-to-fill areas – bilingual and special education.
Karen R. Jackson is the district’s chief human capital services officer. She says MPS has a lot to offer.
"We have the highest or one of the highest salaries, and I’d say the highest, minus some people having flexibility to match ours and we want to let people know that in education, we are an urban district and to that extent, that’s an advantage over many districts that are not an urban district. And we’d like to think of ourselves as the employer of choice," Jackson says.
Jackson also reminds potential employees that the district no longer requires staff to live in the city of Milwaukee.
While MPS recruits, Jackson says highly-qualified substitutes are leading classrooms. Some are retired teachers.