At Northwood Elementary School, the lack of a dish washer means food service workers don’t have the time to scrub silverware, leading to more than 250 plastic forks ending up in garbage cans every school day.
It also means more work for other cafeteria employees, who have to go to the dish room and clean items while their coworkers cycle in to help cover for them.
Northwood is not alone in its food service staffing shortage, as there is a shortage across Franklin Community School Corporation, a general shortage across Johnson County’s six school districts and in districts across the state. On Tuesday, there were 3,151 jobs open in schools across Indiana, according to the Indiana Department of Education’s School Personnel Job Bank. This figure does not include non-education positions such as transportation and food service workers, which are also a universal problem.
Though school is already back in session, officials are still scrambling to fill hundreds of positions ranging from instructional assistants for special education to food service and transportation.
On Tuesday, Franklin’s job board showed eight food service openings, 10 special educational assistant vacancies and eight instructional assistant posts, among 72 overall openings, according to the Central Indiana AppliTrack Consortium.
In food service, the number of vacancies, although not zero, is less than it was at this time last year, when the number of open positions hovered around 15, said Elizabeth Edwards, food service director.
“I think it’s a lot of marketing, word of mouth, we have great staff who enjoy what they do and advocated for joining us,” Edwards said. “I’ve done outreach on social media to highlight what’s available, and there’s the changing landscape of the pandemic. It’s a lot of the reason we lost a considerable amount of staff a couple of years ago. I think people are more willing to come back to work.”
When there aren’t enough food service workers, as is the case with other positions, workers have to take on extra duties or slice some items off the menu, she said.
For Franklin’s vacancies in instructional assistants, often other staff members, and teachers on their break time, visit classrooms to fill in, said Michelle Bright, Franklin’s human resources director.
“Sometimes we’re able to find substitute teachers for small periods of time, but for the most part, they go unfilled,” Bright said. “Principals, school counselors are stepping in, other teachers are covering for each other. It creates a stressor in buildings and classrooms.”
At Center Grove Community School Corporation, there were 11 special education assistants needed Tuesday, the largest group of openings with the exception of coaching positions. Feeding that shortage is the Indiana Department of Education’s new requirement that special education assistants who do not yet have their full licensure to obtain special education licenses, which permit a maximum of three years for an employee to obtain their full license.
In these cases, teachers and other instructional assistants fill in to help reduce the student-to-staff member ratio in special education classrooms, said Jason Taylor, Center Grove’s assistant superintendent of human resources.
The strategy of having staff members cover in areas that aren’t in their job descriptions applies to other positions as well when there are vacancies, he said.
“In most of these, we’re covering with other staff members,” Taylor said. “If there aren’t enough bus drivers, mechanics would drive. Some shifts, food service will have to clean up later or we’ll flex people from building to building if one building is full staff and the other is one or two down.”
At Edinburgh Community School Corporation, there are openings for teachers at all three of the district’s schools, instructional assistants, bus drivers, custodians and food service workers. As of Tuesday at the county’s smallest school district, there were 15 open positions, in addition to substitute vacancies, listed on the school district’s website.
“We are facing shortages in literally every area,” Superintendent Ron Ross said in an email. “We are having to find creative solutions to how we (serve) students. Our principals and administrators are finding people, but we are having to recruit people because many of our open positions simply do not have any applicants. I am proud of the work that we have done to find people for the positions we have filled. We need to find a long-term solution to the staff shortage currently facing public education.”
At Greenwood Community School Corporation, there were 50 positions open Tuesday, including six in transportation and 14 in food service.
The transportation worker shortage has been ongoing for at least six years, said Mike Hildebrand, the school district’s transportation director.
When there’s a bus driver shortage, double busing will occur, meaning a bus will pick students up and drop them off at school early, before getting a second load of students. That second bus is usually about 20 minutes late, Hildebrand said.
“We have posted online, we also pay our employees for referrals,” Hildebrand said. “I would still like to have more bus drivers because right now, this school year we will be double busing our elementary and middle school kids.”
Indian Creek has the fewest openings of any Johnson County school district, with just 16, including substitutes, according to AppliTrack.
Those openings are evenly distributed, with support staff holding the most openings with three vacancies. Superintendent Tim Edsell credits hourly wage increases and benefit improvements to the district’s ability to find and retain employees.
At Clark-Pleasant Community School Corporation there are 46 open positions, 21 of which are support staff vacancies, such as instructional assistants. When schools are down workers, the situation is exacerbated when there aren’t enough substitutes, said John Schilawski, human resources director.
“Instructional assistants play a tremendously important role in someone’s life,” he said. “They will play multiple roles or abandon their role to fill a role that might be missing. Let’s say someone is sick, I still need those hands. If you can’t get a substitute, now you’re down a person again.”
