Clancy school short on staff, flush with students

"We've had a hard time hiring all over the school," Clancy School District Clerk Jennifer Goehring told The Monitor. Two open positions for a playground aide and a part-time custodian, posted in April, have gone unanswered. Since then, the school has also listed a special education paraprofessional as open.

Shauna Hance, a sixth-grade teacher at Clancy School, told The Monitor that without these employees, the teachers must fill the need, making their job more difficult. Hance said the staffing shortages impact the special education program the most.

"It's difficult to run a school smoothly when you have empty positions," Hance said. If the positions go unfilled, she said the school would have to make adjustments such as only opening half the playground during recess.

While other schools grapple with teacher shortages, Hance said obtaining classified staff -- non-teachers -- and teachers of specific subjects is a bigger challenge for Clancy School.

In an effort to attract more applicants, as well as provide current employees with a living wage, the district has worked to increase pay for teachers and classified staff.

"We're doing our best to make the salaries for the teachers a little more competitive," Hance said, unsure that it would increase the district's number of job applications.

As the school faces labor shortages, an increase in the district's student population threatens to push the school over its class size capacities. 

The Office of Public Instruction, Montana's statewide education agency, has set limits on how many students one teacher can supervise at a time. When a grade surpasses the current teachers' capacities, the school must hire an instructional aide to assist for 1.5 hours each day, per student overload with a maximum of six hours. The other solution is to divide the students and hire another teacher.

Chapter 55 of the Administrative Rules of Montana -- a set of rules governing state agencies -- explains that kindergarten through second grade classes cannot exceed 20 students per classroom. Meanwhile, third and fourth grade classes have a 28 student capacity and fifth through eighth grade classes can hold a maximum of 30 students.

On July 22, Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen submitted a final report of proposed amendments, repeals, transfers and new rules for the chapters governing class sizes to the Montana Board of Public Education. This report suggests replacing the requirement of an instructional aide with the condition that school districts "provide additional Human Resources when exceeding maximum class sizes." Arntzen's report claims that this change will give schools more flexibility in determining the type of assistance needed in an overloaded elementary class. 

The report also suggests a clarification that a classroom with five extra students is considered excessively overloaded. The Board of Public Education has yet to adopt these changes. The board will consider the changes at its Aug. 15 meeting; however it will not vote to adopt the changes until early 2023, according to Montana Office of Public Instruction Communications Director Brian O'Leary.

During the Clancy School Board's June meeting, Goehring notified the trustees that all grades, except the second grade, were nearing their capacities.

At the same board meeting, the trustees considered several out-of-district student applications. The board approved all but one first grade student's application, tabling any decision on the application until the school could account for students moving in and out of the district during the summer.

Goehring said the district will not approve an out-of-district application if it requires the school to spend additional funds, such as hiring a new teacher to accommodate an extra classroom.

O'Leary told the Monitor that school staffing shortages result from more than just classroom sizes. "There is help wanted signs in many businesses throughout our state and our schools are no exception," he said. "The Superintendent is working to address staffing shortages through innovative solutions."

On March 14, State Policy Director of the Montana Learning Institute Tara Kini, published a study of methods used across the nation to recruit and retain staff in schools. The study suggests three avenues for solving school labor shortages: offering competitive wages and loan forgiveness, providing access to high-quality preparation such as teacher residencies and encouraging an environment of collaboration to make the work load more manageable for existing staff members.

For two years, Arntzen has worked with the Board of Public Education to improve teacher recruitment and retention in schools by creating preparation programs, increasing access for expired licensees to reenter classrooms and by recognizing licenses for nationally board-certified teachers, according to a May 12 OPI press release.

Prior to this initiative, Arntzen helped start the Montana Teacher Residency Demonstration Project. According to a May 5 OPI news release, teacher residencies are a paid form of student teaching during the fourth year of an undergraduate's studies. "Teacher residents focus on the teaching and learning process while being embraced by school mentors," Arntzen said in the press release. "Teacher residents will become an integral part of the communities where they serve, which will give them a solid foundation to build their future."

Fourteen rural or high-risk Montana schools are set to participate in the inaugural year of this program this fall. 

Hance voiced concern that hiring another teacher would impact the school's already tight budget. To make these methods more of a reality for schools, the federal government has allocated $189 billion to the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, according to Kini's study. Schools receive money from this fund as formula grants.

Another $429.8 billion has been set aside for similar reasons in the Governor's Emergency Education Relief Fund, the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, and the State and Local Fiscal Relief Fund.

Goehring did not respond as to whether the school had received and utilized the funds by The Monitor's print deadline.

Although Clancy School's student population has grown, Goehring said there is still room in the building to expand. She also explained that the district built the school with future expansions in mind, leaving the possibility of turning the cafeteria into three classrooms.

Goehring said the school's growth resulted from publicizing the "great Clancy School district," explaining that approximately 15 students -- without a parent or sibling in the school -- make the drive from Helena each day. "It's worth the drive," she said.

Hance, a teacher of 27 years, said Clancy School's smaller class sizes are more appealing than the Helena district's larger ones. Additionally, Hance said the school's in-person education during the pandemic attracted students who hoped to avoid an online or hybrid model, adding that those students continue to attend Clancy School despite the restoration of in-person education elsewhere.

"We have an amazing group of educators," Hance said. "And, we're happy that there is growth."