Many education positions remain unfilled across county

St. Joseph County Intermediate School District Superintendent Teresa Belote said the area’s shortage of education-related employees is still a real problem.

When superintendents from around St. Joseph County met Aug. 9, there were 95 open positions across the county. The shortage is in several areas, including teachers and all school staff positions.

Since the meeting earlier this month, some positions have been filled. But as of Monday, the ISD itself still needed 30 employees.

Belote said she has seen a lot of back-filling of positions. But that raised concerns for her about limiting the availability of substitute teachers.

For example, Belote said she, in fact, spent some time filling in at the ISD’s front desk last week.