‘Definitely making progress’: Omaha Public Schools updates effort to fill openings

By ABBIE PETERSEN

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    OMAHA, Nebraska (KETV) — The first day of school is just weeks away, but Omaha Public Schools is still trying to fill the staffing shortage.

An OPS representative says they’ve done a lot of work to hire more staff over the past two months but they’re still working to fill all the positions.

“Definitely making progress and definitely progress over where we were two months ago,” said chief operations officer Charles Wakefield.

Wakefield showed that progress at Monday night’s board meeting.

At the elementary level, the district says 96.5% of positions are now filled.

The number is about the same for middle and high schools, 96.3% of openings are filled.

“To put this in perspective, pre-pandemic, this time the school year we would be just under 99% filled to start the school year. So while 96 does look very good at this point it is below what we typically are,” Wakefield said.

Wakefield says the district held an interview fair in July and they made 73 job offers.

He adds they’ve hired more than 400 new teachers for the school year, which is about 30 more than average.

“This is the most exciting information we have gotten from someone standing at the podium for quite a long time,” said board member Nancy Kratky.

Board members say they were nervous about the school year, but now they’re relieved to see the progress.

“We’ve still got a lot of positions to fill, but it’s just very optimistic. I think how things are going and I know they’re going to continue to work hard to get our needs met,” said vice president Jane Erdenberger.

Wakefield says teachers will have slightly larger class sizes, but he promises this:

“Every child will start the school year with a teacher in their classroom. Every child will have a teacher and that is our goal,” Wakefield said.

Omaha Public Schools will have two upcoming interview fairs for classified staff, that will include job offers and background checks on the spot.

• Pine Elementary (Aug. 11)

• TAC (Aug. 22)

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