Canyons School District details hiring push, retention programs and staffing formulas as enrollment shifts

CANYONS SCHOOL DISTRICT — Canyons School District officials said the district hired far fewer teachers this year than in previous recent years and described how the district forecasts staffing needs, recruits for hard-to-fill roles and invests in retention. The district, which officials said serves about 32,000 students and employs about 6,000 people, hired roughly 300 teachers in one recent year, about 200 the next year and was on track to hire about 100 in the current year, with roughly 23 positions remaining open across elementary and secondary schools.

The district’s human resources director, Steve Diamond, said the hiring and staffing process begins with enrollment projections and a school performance review that determines full-time-equivalent (FTE) allocations. “FTE allocations are determined by our directors of school performance,” Diamond said on the Connect Canyons podcast. That allocation, he said, and other factors — such as numbers of multilingual students, proficiency levels, the count of students performing well below basic in reading and math, and special programs like dual language immersion (DLI) and career and technical education (CTE) — shape how many teachers a school receives.

District recruiters Lori Reynolds and Kelly Tautioli, both former principals, described where the district still sees hiring pressure. “Of those 23 jobs that I mentioned that are…