Logo courtesy of Gridley Unified School District

GRIDLEY, CA (MPG) – Gridley Unified School District will begin the new school year with a larger pool of teacher applicants than last year, but district officials still expect to rely on six teacher interns and one emergency-permitted teacher to staff hard-to-fill classrooms.

The district's annual Declaration of Need for Fully Qualified Educators, approved earlier this summer, allows Gridley Unified to hire teachers under emergency permits, limited assignment permits and intern credentials when fully credentialed applicants are unavailable. The declaration is required each year by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing and provides districts with hiring flexibility for difficult-to-fill positions.

Superintendent Justin Kern said the district expects to hire six teacher interns and one teacher under an emergency permit for the 2026-27 school year, fewer than originally anticipated in the declaration presented to the school board.

The district employs the equivalent of about 100 full-time teachers, making the anticipated seven hires a relatively small but important part of staffing classrooms for the coming year.

Kern said some vacancies consistently prove more difficult to fill than others.

"Historically and currently, our most challenging positions to fill are in Special Education and specialized single-subject areas, particularly Mathematics and Science," Kern said.

Despite the ongoing shortage in specialized teaching fields, Kern said recruiting has improved compared with a year ago.

"It is better," Kern said. "Our overall applicant pool was noticeably larger this year, allowing us to fill open positions more readily than in the previous school year."

The declaration approved by the district estimates the potential need for emergency permits, limited assignment permits and intern credentials in several credential areas if fully qualified applicants cannot be found. Officials said the declaration is a planning document required before districts may request those credentials from the state during the school year.

Kern credited several recruiting efforts with helping expand the applicant pool.

To attract qualified educators, the district posts openings through EdJoin, California's primary online education employment system, attends regional recruiting events including job fairs at California State University, Chico, and has established partnerships with colleges and universities to develop internship pathways for future teachers.

Even with those efforts, Kern said the shortage has a disproportionate impact on rural and mid-sized school districts.

"Competing within a limited labor pool for candidates holding these specific single-subject credentials remains an ongoing hurdle for rural and mid-sized districts throughout California."

The declaration allows the district to request the appropriate credentials from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing if fully credentialed teachers cannot be hired before or during the school year.