Morris High School looks to hire five teachers for the 2023-24 school year

MORRIS – Morris Community High School board discussed hiring five new teachers for the 2023-24 school year during Monday night’s board meeting.

Superintendent Craig Ortiz said there is a need for math, English, science, special education and blingual teachers.

“We are looking at those due to increased enrollments, some of the positions like science were part-time and we are expanding to full-time. We have a math position open due to retirement. We are trying to get those candidates and it’s driven by course requests,” Ortiz said.

Ortiz talked to the board about some of the struggles he and Principal Micheal Gourley were facing during the hiring process. He said he didn’t believe it was “a money thing” but “a geography thing” and he hoped to have the positions filled by next month’s meeting.

“The challenge Mr. Gourley and I are running into is getting good candidates. We’re interviewing them and they are not wanting to accept because they just want to keep interviewing and see what’s out there. It’s kind of a buyer’s market so to speak,” he said.

Gourley added that the difficulty in finding quality candidates is a byproduct of the teacher shortage, but job fairs have had good turnouts recently.

“I think the teacher pre-programs are probably doing a really good job getting kids interested and people are still seeing application as a viable place to go and gain employment and have a career. So, hopefully, we will see some relief in the next few years, if not sooner,” he said.