MPS Teacher Vacancies As School Year Approaches

Hundreds of job openings, that’s what you’ll find if you look on the Montgomery Public Schools website right now.  With school less than two weeks away, we asked school leaders how they plan to fill these positions and learned the numbers online may not be accurate.

There are 368 open positions listed on MPS’ website right now.  They range from from science… to foreign language…. and even physical education teachers, and they’re at numerous schools.  MPS Superintendent Dr. Ann Roy Moore says those numbers are not accurate.

So where do the numbers stand right now?  Moore says there were around 150 open teacher positions at the beginning of the summer.  Now, with two weeks until the first school bell rings that number is closer to 70.

“That’s we hope a number than we can reduce because principals are steadily interviewing and we’re hoping that people will accept,” Moore shared.

MPS is still under state intervention and their accreditation status has been changed to “under review” pending a December check-in with the accrediting agency.  Moore says that status can hurt recruitment.

“Nobody really wants to be in a system that’s not accredited, so we’re very comfortable with the fact that we’re going to maintain our accreditation,” she explained.

Moore says that nationwide it is harder to recruit teachers in math and sciences.  She hopes the number of openings will be under 20 by the first day of school.