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Personnel committee reviews staffing shortages, recruitment plans for Frederick County schools
Summary
At a Sept. 8 personnel committee meeting, staff reported continued shortages of special education instructional assistants and support staff, reviewed retention data showing higher turnover after five years, and outlined recruitment steps including a virtual career expo Dec. 9 and increased substitute onboarding.
On Sept. 8, 2025, the Frederick County School Board Personnel Committee received a staffing and recruitment briefing from division human-resources staff that highlighted persistent vacancies in special education instructional assistants, progress on substitute hiring, and planned recruitment events.
Miss Campbell, presenting the staffing update, said teacher vacancies by content remain concentrated in elementary special education and that support-staff openings are led by instructional assistant roles. A staff presenter said, "11 of those 17 are special instructional assistants," and added that retaining staff for level‑2 settings has been difficult despite a differential pay incentive.
Staff reviewed hires for fiscal 2026 (beginning July 1, 2025) and reported that most new teachers have 0–2 years' experience. A staff speaker said the division has historically retained about "80 to 85%" of teachers in the 0–2 year cohort in past years; committee members asked staff to produce retention-by-year figures for current hires.
On substitute staffing, presenters said the division had 38 long-term substitute teaching roles filled as of Aug. 28 and that since July 31 the division had added 17 substitutes and had 25 scheduled for orientation — which the presenter said would "get us up to 500 substitutes" (figure given verbatim in the presentation; the committee did not provide supporting documentation for that total during the meeting).
Employee services representative Tashika Edwards described employee perks and discount programs, including working advantage and Perks at Work through the Anthem employee-assistance program, and urged staff and retirees to use those resources. She also asked employees to complete an upcoming benefits-incentive survey to inform future offerings.
Miss Campbell and staff outlined recruitment strategies: a tentative virtual career expo on Dec. 9 (4:30–6 p.m.), three in-person fairs already booked, expanded marketing, "grow your own" career-pathway partnerships with neighboring divisions (staff cited a meeting with Stafford County), and plans to hire a supervisor of recruitment, retention and engagement.
No items required action by the full board at this meeting; staff agreed to return retention-duration data and other follow-ups to the committee.
