NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson USD 308 Superintendent Dr. Dawn Johnson said Tuesday that they are still looking for applicants for the seventeen openings in the district for teachers. Many of those are at the elementary level.
"We are very concerned," Johnson said. "We are just not getting any applications. I know the pipeline coming out of college is even smaller. We did have an opportunity where we were working with a community group, to go to Langston University down in Oklahoma. As we were working on that, we said, let's expand that to other areas in the community. The Chamber got involved, Dillons got involved, the hospital and some other organizations and went down and kind of had a little mini fair at a university."
Langston University is the only historically black college or university (HBCU) in the state of Oklahoma. The hope is to get some decisions made about next year in just a few weeks.
"We may have to take a hard look," Johnson said. "Depending on how we solve this problem, we may or may not move forward with the Graber and McCandless boundary change now. That is a possibility. We know, again, that we have more buildings than we have staff for. We want that facility committee to help us. I'll try to put those two things together. I do want to come back, for those folks who are wondering what we're going to look like next year. My goal is that by the May 8 school board meeting, we have a decision made."
Johnson said they may even have to hold a special board meeting before that, if they can figure out what they are going to do.
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