Here & Now

Lance Bagstad on Rural Schools Facing Teacher Shortages

Frederica Freyberg:

Even with the start of school right around the corner, a check of hiring portals shows districts across the state are still hundreds of teachers short and the need for support staff is even higher. Nearly 70% of school districts in Wisconsin are considered rural and the need can be especially acute in those schools. Our next guest is the Arcadia school district administrator. Lance Bagstad knows the struggle to find staff firsthand and thanks very much for being here.

Lance Bagstad:

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So, what are the numbers right now in your district for how short you still are for teachers and staff?

Lance Bagstad:

Yeah, actually we are — we have our classrooms filled but we do not have them all filled with teachers certified in some of the areas. We have had to fill some of our classrooms, at least temporarily, with long-term subs. All across the district, so we’ve got elementary positions that we are still looking for certified staff. We have middle school positions and we have high school positions. So pretty common across rural schools, across Wisconsin right now, only a few weeks away from the start of school that classrooms are not fully staffed yet.

Frederica Freyberg:

So, what do you say to families with students in the district about that, and whether or not the classroom instruction will be good this year?

Lance Bagstad:

Yeah, certainly that’s something we have had to discuss administratively across our district. The positive we have for us is we do have three instructional coaches across the district that actually work with teachers on coaching cycles, whether that’s an elementary teacher, middle school teacher or high school teacher on best practices, and we are also a professional learning community school district so our teachers have an opportunity to get together with either similar subject areas or grade level teachers to work on assessments, on common standards, and best practices in the classroom. So with those teachers that may not be, or may be long-term subs, we are able to surround them with a lot of good people to assist with their instruction as well as their practices.

Frederica Freyberg:

In terms of the staff shortages, have you ever seen it like this before coming into this school year?

Lance Bagstad:

Not anything close to this. I’ve been a district administrator now in my fifth year. I was a principal for 12 years prior to that. I have never seen shortages like this. You know, there’s always been certain areas where there’s been shortages. For example, special education, career and technical education areas, world languages, but we are now seeing those same shortages hit us at the elementary level as well as those areas I just mentioned. For example, we had 3 or 4 openings at our elementary this year. We had less than 15 applicants for positions. We had a 4K position open, we only had two applicants for that position. That’s really unusual. In the past, elementary positions, you would get 40, 50, 60, even sometimes 100 applicants. They are just not out there at this time.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why isn’t Arcadia or other small rural districts able to attract teachers?

Lance Bagstad:

You know, I think part of it is the ruralness of our districts. You know, I’ve often said in conversations with others that a lot of our young people that are in preservice teacher programs at colleges and universities get used to the amenities that a larger city offers, you know. Things that are available in a large city that may not be as accessible in rural Wisconsin. But I would also argue that the teacher shortage, while it’s impacting rural Wisconsin pretty greatly, it’s also impacting even our urban districts are struggling to have a lot of candidates applying for jobs.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you do to try to compete with the geographical location that you hold?

Lance Bagstad:

Yeah, you know, for us it is a little difficult. We are basically located halfway between the city of La Crosse and the city of Eau Claire, and about 35 minutes from Winona, Minnesota, which obviously are larger cities than we are. We are looking at having to change our pay scale, increase pay, try to find ways to offer other benefits to teachers. We have done some things in our district, especially in high need areas by offering incentives to help with tuition and tuition reimbursement in some areas, especially special education, when that’s been the case. So we are really looking at a number of different things that we are able to do. The other thing we are able to do in our area, the school districts of Arcadia, Independence, Blair-Taylor and Whitehall, we have a four-school co-op known as the Trempealeau Valley Cooperative, and we are actually in constant discussion about how we can share staff, how we can incentivize some of our teachers by — for teaching remotely to our four districts as well as potentially incentivizing teachers with additional pay if they are willing to travel from district to district to help with the shortages.

Frederica Freyberg:

Wow, a lot of work. Lance Bagstad, thanks very much and good luck with the new school year.

Lance Bagstad:

Absolutely. Appreciate the time.