Minneapolis Public Schools will start the school year with fewer unfilled positions for teachers and paraprofessionals in its schools than it did in the previous two school years, according to job openings listed on the district’s website and analyzed by Minneapolis Schools Voices.

The lower number of vacancies was expected because the district reduced the number of school-based staff, including nearly 400 intervention positions funded with federal pandemic aid, as part of budget reductions approved by the school board in June.

For the third year in a row, Minneapolis Schools Voices has gathered online job postings to examine vacancies for teachers and paraprofessionals before the start of the school year.

The district has 63 openings for teachers and 49 openings for paraprofessionals assigned to directly support students in schools, according to job openings listed on the district’s website on Aug. 24. The district told Minneapolis Schools Voices that as of Aug. 30 there are 62.9 full time equivalent teacher positions unfilled, out of 2,228 total positions. The district says the classroom teacher vacancy rate is 2.8%.

The district is balancing its budget this school year, in part, by assuming that it will have a 4.5% vacancy rate across all district positions, saving the district $27 million. If the vacancy rate falls below that level this year, the district might need to use additional funding from its reserves in order to balance its budget.

While the lower number of vacancies district wide is a positive sign, the unfilled positions will disproportionately impact the district’s students receiving special education services.

Two-thirds of unfilled teaching positions are for special education teachers, and most unfilled paraprofessional positions are for special education assistants, according to the district’s online job listings. The district says its vacancy rate for special education teachers is 8%, four times as high as the vacancy rate for teachers overall.

There are 42 open special education teacher positions listed on the district’s website. When the district started its internal hiring process in April, there were 542 open positions for teachers, including 134 openings for special education teachers.

Last fall, a similar analysis of job openings showed there were 58 unfilled special education teacher positions before the school year started. The year before, there were 46 special education teacher positions unfilled.

Despite having a lower proportion of district enrollment, schools in the attendance pathways for Camden and North High Schools have a disproportionate share of unfilled teacher positions as the school year begins. Data compiled by Melissa Whitler

Students attending schools in the attendance pathways for Camden and North High Schools are disproportionately impacted by the unfilled positions. The graph above shows the percentage of unfilled teacher positions in each pathway (in blue) compared to the percentage of district students enrolled in schools in that pathway (in red). The graph includes data for this school year in darker shades, and for last fall in lighter shades.

While students in the Camden High School pathway are 9% of the district’s students, nearly one in every three vacant teaching positions in the district is in a school in the Camden pathway. Overall, the total unfilled teacher positions in the Camden pathway have fallen from 37 openings last August to 20 this year.

Students attending schools in the North High School pathway makeup less than 7% of the district’s enrollment, but nearly 10% of all unfilled teaching positions are in schools in this pathway. Overall, the total unfilled positions in the North pathway have declined from 19  openings last fall to six openings this fall.

The disproportionate impact of vacancies on Northside students is consistent across the three years of data Minneapolis Schools Voices has examined, and a pattern of vacancies and turnover that has existed in the district for years. A majority of students in Northside schools are students of color and students who qualify for free and reduced price meals under federal guidelines. Across the United States, schools that serve students of color and low income students have the highest vacancy rates of any public schools.

The district offered two proposals to address the disproportionate impact of vacancies on some schools during collective bargaining with the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers in late 2023. The first proposal allowed the district to move staff into unfilled positions to balance the impact of vacancies across schools in the district. This proposal was rejected by the union.

The district also proposed shortening the spring hiring process so the district could begin recruiting external candidates earlier in the school year. Currently, Minneapolis Public Schools is one of the last districts to begin external hiring for teachers, and the district says this limits the number and quality of applicants it can attract to fill open positions. The district and union reached a one year memorandum of agreement to shorten the internal hiring process this coming spring. The agreement will not take effect if the district decides to close more than 7% of its schools in the 2025-26 school year.

To address the shortage of special education teachers, the district started MPS-Academy, a state accredited program for district employees who already have a bachelor’s degree and would like to obtain a special education teaching license. The 15-month long program began training its first cohort of 15 educators in June. The district is recruiting for a second cohort to begin in June 2025. The district began developing the MPS-Academy program in 2019.