SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — About 1,100 people applied for open teaching positions in the Sioux Falls School District this year.
There are many applicants, but Sioux Falls isn’t the only district in which 1,100 applicants are interested.
“We also know we share the 1,000 applicants with everybody in eastern South Dakota and states around us,” said Becky Dorman, of the school district’s human resources department. “It’s great that it’s 1,100 but the number is really smaller than that.”
Many school districts use the same online application software. “Technology makes it so simple to apply,” Dorman said.
Sioux Falls will stand out from those other districts because of its strong instructional support program, Dorman said. Teachers work with mentors in the program. An online posting for a teaching job won’t include that stand-out feature, Dorman said. Instead, it’s shared through in-person contact with a potential teacher.
One of the most effective ways to share instructional support is sharing it with student teachers and with institutions that help place graduates in teaching positions, Dorman said. The school district also highlights the program at in-person recruiting events.
The district can provide its own prospective candidate pool through student teachers.
“We know historically…almost 50% of our hires have never done it before,” Dorman said. Those are student teachers who get hired for teaching jobs after graduation.
The district wants a healthy student teaching program. Dorman has never heard that it is difficult to find teachers willing to have a student teacher in the classroom.
Another growing applicant pool is hiring through the state’s alternative certification process. Thirty-eight alternative certification teachers were hired for this school year. Many of them start as substitute teachers. The alternative certification hires equals 38 the total of 148 teacher hires. It was 15% in 2023-2024 and 10% in 2022-2023.
“The way substitute teaching used to be is that graduates jumped into subbing and they sub for a couple of years before a position opened,” Dorman said.
Today, a substitute teacher may be a person considering a career change. “They are using substitute teaching to test the waters,” Dorman said. If they find they like teaching, the district can work with them on the state’s alternative pathway program to get certified.
The 1,146 applicants for this school year are the most since 1,037 applicants. While the district draws from the new graduate pool, substitute teachers and other districts in the state and Midwest, it also draws interest from applicants from other countries.
Dorman said 42% of the 1,146 applicants were from another country which is more than the 40% from South Dakota. “That leaves 18% coming from another state in the U.S.,” Dorman said.
The interest from applicants outside the U.S. is an opportunity for the district, she said. The district has hired applicants from outside the U.S. for its Spanish immersion program.
If there is interest from outside the U.S., it’s another way to find teachers, Dorman said.
The district has lost and gained teachers from other districts in the state. It’s an even split this year as 18 teachers left for other districts and 18 came from other districts. The 18 that joined the district came from schools within an hour’s distance.
