Back to School: Despite lower vacancies, Wake County has nearly 300 teacher vacancies ahead of school year

As Wake County Public Schools prepares to welcome students back to the classroom, it’s also working to fill its staff vacancies.

New data shared from the district Wednesday shows 294 teacher vacancies and 117 instructional assistant vacancies.

“We still have a lot of those K-5 vacancies,” said AJ Muttillo, the assistant superintendent for human resources. “There are some of your traditional ones that we still see more than others. Math positions. Science positions. Some of our career-technical education positions as well.”

However, these numbers show improvement. Compared to August 2022, the district has 107 fewer teacher vacancies and 75 fewer instructional assistant vacancies. That puts the vacancy rates at 2.48% and 4.03%, respectively.

“We're seeing declines in vacancy rates in both regular ed, special ed teachers, instructional assistants - some of those key positions that support our students directly,” Muttillo said.

Even though the school year is starting, hiring isn’t slowing down, according to Muttillo.

“We're still receiving 30 hiring recommendations a day,” he said.

With a nationwide teacher shortage, WRAL asked where new hires are coming from.

“We still have a lot of traditionally-trained teachers coming out of 4-year education programs, but we do also see applicants who are exploring a career change,” Muttillo said.

He said the district is also invested in its student teachers and often recruits them for full-time positions.

Additionally, he said turnover rates have decreased in recent years.

“We've also adjusted to our new marketplace. We advertise a lot more; we devote more resources to tracking folks who are interested,” Muttillo said.

Muttillo said classes that don’t have a permanent teacher on the first day of classes will be assigned substitute teachers.

“Well over 3,000 teachers have either renewed or we’ve hired this year to be a substitute teacher. That’s a strong pool, and it’s up from last year,” he said.

The school district also utilizes ‘building substitutes.’ They report to the building daily and are assigned a class as needed.

In addition, he said qualified people in the building not assigned to a classroom day-to-day may fill in.