Minnetonka Schools reports steady recruitment gains, highlights retention challenges

Minnetonka Public Schools presented its annual recruitment and retention update at the May 29 school board meeting, highlighting increased outreach and some continuing staffing challenges.

"Our content garnered about 150,000 impressions over the past year," Executive Director of Human Resources and General Counsel Angie Flowers said, summarizing a year of expanded recruiting activity that the district said has broadened applicant reach and engagement. Flowers told the board the district used its careers pages, LinkedIn, Diversity in Ed and targeted ads through Sahan Journal in multiple languages to reach candidates.

Why it matters: district leaders framed the work as central to maintaining classroom continuity and meeting board goals on leadership and organizational support.

Flowers presented metrics showing growth on LinkedIn — a reported 150,000 impressions, roughly 71,000 member reach and an engagement rate the district said rose to about 10.8% (the platform average the presenter cited was 3.16%). She said posting and targeted advertising helped generate applicant pools for hard-to-fill roles; a principal posting for Scenic Heights’ principal job drew 35 applicants while an assistant-principal posting drew about 130 applicants.

On substitutes and reserve teachers, HR reported 46 new reserve teacher hires, 28 new paraprofessional substitutes and 10 proctors. The district said 81 reserve teachers have worked multiple times per week and 26 were new hires from the current cycle. Flowers described a system of six-week building floats and other strategies that contributed to what she called strong substitute coverage in many weeks.

The district also reported 96.4% of budgeted paraprofessional positions filled this year and emphasized a push to make special-education paraprofessionals "highly qualified" under state rules. Flowers said 42 paraprofessionals attained highly qualified status by passing the para assessment, with additional staff tested during summer and throughout the year.

Recruiting events and partnerships were a repeated focus: Minnetonka held a school-operations job fair that doubled attendance year over year, used the CERCA distribution network to post thousands of openings to community organizations, and participated in university job fairs. Flowers thanked principals and HR staff who attended fairs and helped represent Minnetonka.

Survey results and retention signals: HR shared results from an employee exit/retention survey with 33 respondents. Flowers said roughly 60% agreed or strongly agreed they received a quality orientation and about 65% agreed there were quality staff-development opportunities. She flagged several areas of concern: a belonging measure that the district reported had been 79% last year fell to 67% this year; morale among respondents dropped from 52% to 38% year over year; and the share saying Minnetonka was a good employer and that they would return dropped from 57% to 50% (Flowers noted differences in the respondent pools across years).

"We do want to keep an eye on providing clear expectations and making sure that morale is at a strong place along with belonging," Flowers told the board.

Other items: HR said it has improved tracking and reporting (including a new report that disaggregates the types of paraprofessionals needed), provided targeted professional development and security training for reserves and substitutes, and promoted custodial, maintenance and nutrition staff certification with financial incentives. The district reported it posted 97 positions and that, at the time of the presentation, roughly three-quarters of those positions were filled.

Board members thanked HR for the overview and discussed follow-up work the department will undertake to address belonging and morale findings.

The board did not take formal action on the HR report; it was presented as an informational update.