Update: Prairie View aims at recruiting non-teachers into the classroom

The Prairie View school district is reaching out to non-teachers in hopes of recruiting them into the classroom. An informational meeting is set for Monday evening at the district office. (Prairie View)

By Roger Sims, rsims@linncountyjournal.com

Update: Prairie View Assistant Superintendent said that 14 interested people attended the information session on July 21, and that several people would be good candidates for teaching posts with the right training. He encouraged people interested in teaching to contact him at the district office. All three school districts in Linn County have teachers who did not originally take a traditional education track.

LA CYGNE – One of Joseph Hornback’s jobs has become increasingly difficult over the last few years. Hornback, the assistant superintendent for the Prairie View district, is charged with recruiting teachers to fill vacancies when staff members move on or retire.

On Monday, July 21, the district held a meeting at the central office for a group of people who were interested in a career in teaching. Targeted toward area residents, the program discussed pathways to the classroom.

Finding teachers to fill openings has become a real problem. Last year, Hornbeck said, nearly 2,000 teaching positions went unfilled in the state of Kansas. That included a sixth-grade language arts position at the Prairie View Middle School.

On Friday, July 18, educatekansas.org, a website listing teaching and coaching jobs across the state, posted 846 openings. That might be an indication that the teacher shortage that developed during the COVID pandemic is easing.

So far, there are two unfilled teaching positions in the Prairie View district with the beginning of the 2025-26 school year less than six weeks away. Both of those jobs are for special education teachers, one at Parker Elementary and one at La Cygne Elementary.

At the the same time, the Pleasanton school district had openings for three teachers until its board meeting on Monday, July 14. The board approved teachers for the social studies and elementary positions that were first posted in April. With the beginning of school a month away, that district is still looking for a language arts teacher for the upper grades.

The Jayhawk district has all teaching positions filled except for an elementary music teacher. On Monday, July 14, the Jayhawk Board of Education approved a plan to shift a secretary from the front office at the high school into that teaching job.

Hornback said he recently attended a job fair for teachers at Pittsburg State University. However, because Pitt State has traditionally been a good source for new graduates, there were more districts there looking for teachers than there were graduates.

Many of those districts were from large metropolitan areas where salaries are more competitive, housing is more readily available and there are more opportunities for activities and entertainment.

Housing is a crucial factor with the number of suitable rental units for young professionals almost nonexistent in Linn County.

Because of that, many teachers and even administrators in the Prairie View district live in Miami County, particularly in the Spring Hill and Louisburg areas. And because housing is readily available there, younger, less established teachers in the Prairie View district are more vulnerable to considering positions with suburban school districts.

With a full staff, Prairie View has 91 teachers, the Jayhawk staff has 47 teachers, and Pleasanton has 24. Those figures include certified staff on special education cooperative’s payroll.

Hornback said that most of the teachers who work at La Cygne and Parker live in Linn County or southern Miami County areas. However, most of the people who live further north work in the upper grades, particularly the high school.

The Jayhawk district teaching staff tends to be more stable than Prairie View’s. Jayhawk Board Clerk Kayla McGrew said that most of the teachers live in the district or nearby with some living in the Prairie View district.

Some Prairie View teachers live in the Jayhawk and Pleasanton districts.

This school year Prairie View starts school on Aug. 15 with Jayhawk a day or two behind. Pleasanton classes resume on Aug. 20. Pleasanton and Jayhawk will end the year in mid-May with Prairie View ending classes a week behind that.

The Prairie View 2025-26 salary schedule sets the base salary at $48,500, up from $47,000 last year. That is for a teacher who has a bachelor’s degree and no experience. Teachers are expected to earn college credits as their career progresses.

A teacher with a bachelor’s degree plus 40 credit hours and 20 years experience would top out at nearly $62,900 with no additional salary for more experience. A teacher with a master’s degree plus 30 hours credit and 25 years experience would earn just over $70,500. A master’s degree with 45 hours credit and 35 years experience would pull down a salary of nearly $76,400.

The Jayhawk 2025-26 salary schedule for teachers has a base salary of $47,000. A teacher with a bachelor’s degree and 45 hours credit and 24 years experience can expect to earn $65,000 annually and those with a master’s degree plus 30 hours credit and 25 years experience will earn $69,200.

The Pleasanton district base pay was $45,000 for teachers for the 2024-25 school year. The district completed contract negotiation with the teachers' association in mid-July and that amount has likely increased. The Pleasanton district did not respond to a request for a salary schedule for this story.

A teacher with a bachelor's degree, 36 credit hours and 30 years experience would top out at .$62,250 under last year's salary schedule. For a teacher with a master's degree plus 24 credit hours and 30 years experience would pull down a salary of $63,900.

The average salary for a person holding a bachelor's degree in Kansas – not just teachers – is just over $51,800, according to ZipRecruiter. However, some starting salaries ranging as high as $85,000

Hornback notes that the position offers additional benefits that can add thousands of dollars to the annual compensation.

Those benefits include single-employee health insurance (with the option of adding family members at additional cost), a $10,000 group term life insurance policy, plus contributions to a KPERS retirement plan, to Medicare and to Social Security. 

Most districts have similar additional benefits. Prairie View also has a program that helps currently employed teachers finance additional credit hours.

All three Linn County school districts have teachers who have either been an aide and decide they want to pursue a teaching career or a teacher who held a bachelor degree in a subject area and wanted to transition into teaching. 

Some of the options for people who already have a degree is to be hired by a school district and then placed in a classroom while taking education courses. For those that don’t have a degree, other colleges around the state have non-traditional student options that give working, first-time college students an option of online coursework.