Most U.S. public elementary and secondary schools faced hiring challenges for the start of the 2024–25 academic year. October 17, 2024. The top two challenges reported were an overall lack of qualified candidates and having too few applicants, federal data show.

As schools continue to navigate staffing shortages — big and small — K-12 Dive reflected on the trends and solutions that emerged in 2024 as education leaders sought to address this persistent issue.

For the past couple years, schools across the country have struggled to keep their classrooms fully staffed. Will that trend continue?

On average, public schools reported having six open teacher positions ahead of the 2024-25 school year, according to the latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ School...

Nearly three-quarters of public schools said they had a difficult time filling one or more vacant teaching positions before kicking off the 2024-25 school year, according to the results of a nationally representative survey of 1,392 schools released by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics on Thursday.