CINCINNATI — School may be out for the summer, but educators are not wasting any time because of a teacher shortage.

What You Need To Know

  • Cincinnati Public School officials are trying to fill 100 positions by the time the new school year starts on Aug. 14

  • The district's senior human resources director said the biggest need is for teachers who want to teach 4th through 6th grade 

  • The district is also planning an additional job fair and weekly open interviews to try to get positions filled 

Olivia Mullenix has been anxiously waiting for a job interview. 

“I’d love to get experience teaching in whatever capacity," said Mullenix, “I’m really just looking to teach in CPS, though.”

It’s her first year out of college, and she’s trying to use her degree to teach middle and high school students in Cincinnati.

“There's so much experience that I have yet to get and so that's what I'm hoping for this year as well as having a job and something to occupy my time and funds,” said Mullenix. 

According to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, there aren’t enough people like her. The state is reporting steady declines in newly credentialed teachers.

The Cincinnati Public School District is feeling the pinch.

“The teacher shortage is real. We go on college campuses and we see fewer and fewer candidates, people are either not choosing to go into education or they are choosing this as a second career and coming in later in life," said Julia Indalecio, senior human resource director for Cincinnati Public Schools.

She said this past school year they had to do whatever they could to get teachers to stay in the classroom.

“We've tried to fill the gaps with people who were unfortunately out of work in other districts and we picked them up in Cincinnati public to try to encourage them to continue their career in education," said Indalecio.

This coming school year, they’re pulling out all the stops, hosting job fairs in the summer to get more teachers before the school year starts. They’ve got 100 spots to fill.

“Anybody that wants to teach grades 4 to 9, that's also a big gap for us. And so, we really are open to a lot of different positions. And also we're open to talking to people who are interested in the teaching profession who maybe didn't get a degree in education, but we can kind of show you some routes to how to get there a little more quickly,” said Indalecio.

Mullenix hopes that one of those spots is hers.

"I want to do this because I love teaching, I'm just really, really excited to start my career,” said Mullenix. 

Tuesday's job fair is not the end of it. The district planning to host another job fair next Tuesday. It will be at Schroeder High School from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Every Wednesday following Juneteenth, hiring managers will also be at the CPS central office between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. for open interviews. 

The first day of school for CPS is Aug. 14. Educators said the goal is to have all the open positions filled by then.