T-R PHOTO BY LANA BRADSTREAM Marshalltown High School Principal Jacque Wyant tells Board President Sean Heitmann, Superintendent Theron Schutte and board member Leah Stanley about the necessity of hiring three additional teachers for MHS during the meeting on Monday night.

Even though it is an ongoing challenge to attract new teachers, the Marshalltown Community School District Board of Education gave approval to hiring three instructors for Marshalltown High School (MHS).

During the regular Monday meeting, Principal Jacque Wyant said students are becoming increasingly involved in agriculture, music and industrial arts, and more staff is needed to meet the growing demand.

The challenge of attracting and maintaining educators is not unique to MCSD. Numerous public districts in the state face the same challenge. Less out-of-state educators choose Iowa as the next step in their career, and fewer students are choosing education as a college major.

Wyant told the board the positions — orchestra and family consumer science teachers, both of which would be full-time, and a part-time agriculture teacher — were necessary. To highlight the need for another orchestra teacher, she addressed the number of district students participating in music. There are a higher number of students in Lenihan Intermediate who are in music classes. That number drops in seventh and eighth grade at Miller Middle School and decreases even more at MHS.

At the high school, the band instructors — Brett Umthun and Brian Lewsadder — teach two periods, one on A day and another on B day. There is one band instructor at Miller Middle School, she said, and the MHS band teachers go there every day to support.

“Then they have time during the day to provide lessons to the students — individual lessons or group lessons,” Wyant said. “Right now they’re getting ready for an ensemble, so they can do a quartet or a trio.”

She said all of the students at Lenihan are in choir. MHS choir teacher Amy Ose goes to Miller twice daily and also instructs at the high school. Wyant said Ose has some time in the afternoon to provide individual lessons but spends a lot of time moving back and forth.

“Even when she wasn’t teaching at Miller, she went over there and provided support,” Wyant said.

After providing the board members with the background on the interest in music, Wyant said she is asking for an additional orchestra teacher. Derek Claussen, orchestra teacher for all of the grades starting with fifth, begins each day with a period of instruction at MHS, and does not have any support.

“Then he races over to Lenihan, and he works with the fifth and sixth grade orchestra students,” Wyant said.

She recalled a former orchestra teacher would have to eat lunch in the car while going to Miller every afternoon. Then the instructor would work with seventh and eighth grade students.

“The orchestra teacher does not have a time built in the day where they can provide individual lessons,” Wyant said.

The situation with the orchestra instructor has been ongoing for a number of years, she said.

“We think if we can get another orchestra teacher in the district, we can provide support for students and see less reduction in the numbers,” Wyant said. “We want to see the numbers stay strong all the way through the system.”

Two years ago, there were 40 students taking agriculture classes. This year, there are 132. There are already 115 students enrolled next year, and Wyant said registration is not over. There are also 36 FFA members as opposed to 13 last year.

Agriculture and FFA instructor Tara Gray has developed four pathways — animal, plant, agribusiness and general — in the last four years. Wyant said there are 13 courses total but only 12 sections for Gray to teach them in, which is only part of the problem. Two college courses through Ellsworth Community College (ECC) will be offered in the 2024-25 school year.

“(Gray) has really built these programs, and I don’t have enough of her,” Wyant said.

In anticipation of the larger agriculture student population, she is asking for an additional part-time teacher. Wyant said she already has one person outside of the district who might be interested if the numbers continue to support it.

Finally, she said the last position involves the Welcome Center coffee shop, which would be a great work-based learning location for skills such as food preparation, customer service, sales, accounting and management.

Wyant said that would cross over with the Career and Technical Education department at MHS. “We need to help prepare [students] for life after high school,” she said. “This is a great opportunity for us to get that Orpheum coffee shop up and running, have another space for a [family and consumer science] teacher.”

Wyant said so many students want to get into family and consumer sciences, and it would be an opportunity to provide culinary and work-based experiences, as well as entrepreneurship. For example, students might have product designs which they could work on.

“We are only limited by our imagination,” she said. “We want students to have that experience.”

Altogether, Wyant said that would entail the additional two and a half positions she is requesting for MHS.

Superintendent Theron Schutte said they had been talking about these positions, particularly orchestra, over the last three years.

“FCS has been one of our most popular elective courses within the CTE area for a long, long time,” he said.

Schutte said the most common question he is asked, since the district acquired the Orpheum, is when the coffee shop would be up and running. It is a good time, he said, to expand these areas.

Board member Leah Stanley asked if there were additional areas where student interest is waning. Wyant said there was not, due to the large student population.

Board Member Sara Faltys asked if it was going to be hard to fill the positions. Wyant told her they need to move on the orchestra position right away because there is an opportunity due to the Des Moines Community School District making changes to the orchestra department, which is going to displace teachers. Wyant said they also have someone interested in the agriculture position, which is typically hard to fill.

“Traditionally, these are all hard to fill positions,” Schutte said. “Definitely, the sooner we can get these jobs posted, the better we have of securing high quality people.”

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Contact Lana Bradstream

at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or

lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.