November 3, 2021 Staffing Shortages

How Can Districts Address Those Hard-to-Fill Positions? 

Kriha Boucek

Authored By:  Cassie Black

We work with clients all across the state and one thing we consistently hear from you, no matter where you are located, is that you are experiencing staffing shortages like never before. While we wish we had a magic answer, we know it’s not that easy. However, we’d like to share some of the creative solutions we’ve seen districts use, as well as some considerations to think about in the event you are looking to fill one of those hard-to-fill positions.


Creative Solutions:

Districts are experiencing staffing shortages at an unprecedented level. This includes special education teachers, school psychologists, occupational therapists, and other related service providers. Here are just a few of the ways in which we’ve seen districts address these shortages:

1. Exploring shared services with cooperatives and neighboring districts.
2. Utilizing agencies to contract with services providers, either in person or through remote service delivery. If you are exploring remote service delivery options, you’ll want to make sure the service provider meets licensing requirements. You will also want to consider on a case-by-case basis whether it is an appropriate service delivery method for the student to receive FAPE, and coordination of service delivery details such as when and where services will be provided, and whether an additional adult needs to be there to supervise the student and address any technology difficulties.
3. Offering to reimburse parents for private services as long as the services are aligned with the student’s IEP.
4. Shifting responsibilities within existing staff or in hiring of new staff. For instance, a district may have a shortage of school psychologists and in looking at the role of the school psychologist, the district determines that much of the school psychologist’s time is spent as an LEA in IEP meetings, as well as evaluating students. Since the evaluation responsibilities may require specialized skills that require the evaluation be completed by a school psychologist, the district may decide to hire someone to be an LEA across multiple buildings to take this off the school psychologist’s plate and free up the time of the existing school psychologists so that they may share evaluation responsibilities that are part of an unfilled position. When making any of these changes, districts must be aware of any bargaining implications.
5. Hiring staff with a short-term emergency approval. ISBE allows districts to apply for short-term emergency approvals for special education teachers who do not hold the LBS endorsement. In these situations, the district may hire an individual who has a PEL license in teaching or ELS-TBE and agree to take additional coursework. Additionally, districts must demonstrate they have exhausted efforts to hire an appropriately licensed individual and confirm a plan for supervision and submit an application to be approved by ISBE.
6. Utilizing retired staff members to provide services. Public Act 102-0537 extended rules permitting retired teachers to work for 120 days or 600 hours through June 30, 2023, without running into complications with retirement status under TRS.

Additional Considerations:

1. When districts are short-staffed, there are several considerations to keep in mind.
2. Keep track of your efforts to hire for the unfilled positions. This includes keeping your posting up on your website, tracking advertising efforts, and tracking efforts to interview and hire for the position. This documentation will be essential in demonstrating the district's efforts in the event there are any concerns with compliance.
3. Proactively communicate with families. In the event shortages are impacting the services being provided to students, be upfront with parents/guardians and communicate the situation and what the district is doing to address the situation. Depending on the situation, this should include a plan for making up missed minutes. As a reminder, a relatively recent law requires that in the event it is determined at an IEP meeting that a student requires a certain service and that service is not implemented within 10 school days after the service was to be initiated, districts are required to provide notice to the parent/guardian that the service has not yet been implemented. The notice must be provided within 3 days of non-compliance and include the district’s process for requesting compensatory services. See 105 ILCS 5/14-8.02(f)(d-5).
4. Review your decision-making process for determining what services are needed and the amount of services needed. Sometimes districts get into habits of determining services based on factors such as scheduling (i.e., we have 40-minute periods so students will receive 40 minutes/week of a service) or programmatic structures (i.e., we have an instructional assistant in the program so all students in the program will receive instructional assistant minutes on their IEP), rather than individual student needs. This may be a good opportunity to review with your IEPs teams factors and considerations when determining the services and supports necessary to provide a student with FAPE.

We know how challenging it can be to address staffing shortages and know that the pandemic has made it that much harder. We also continue to be impressed by the creative solutions and collaborative efforts we see when working with school districts each day.

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