Teacher shortage: MDE lists over 2,100 job openings across state

Last Thursday morning, the Mississippi Department of Education had 2,120 job openings listed on its website. A day later, five more had been added across the state’s 148 districts.

Comparatively, the need for teachers, coaches, nurses, bus drivers and other school district employees is less severe around Tupelo than the rest of the state. In the 30 school districts in Northeast Mississippi, there were 118 job openings as of Friday morning. That’s 3.93 per school district. The other 118 districts average 17 job openings apiece.

Across Mississippi, superintendents and other administrators are brainstorming plans to attract talented employees to work in schools.

“Currently right now there’s just a shortage of teachers overall,” said former Tupelo High School principal Jason Harris, who is currently the superintendent of Columbia school district.

“We had a Gulf Coast consortium meeting last week with a group of the superintendents on the coast. The number one thing we talked about is the teacher shortage and how we as a whole need to do a better job of bringing in and keeping teachers,” Harris stated.