MENASHA, Wis.- Good teachers are what sets schools apart from each other, but it's getting harder for them to find quality educators.
"As the pools get smaller what we are doing is we're going out and doing recruiting to our neighboring states," said Menasha School District Human Resources director, Peter Pfundtner.
Pfundtner says the last time he's seen a decline like this was back in the 70's. It's even hard to find elementary education teachers.
"In 2015 we're at 175 applicants," said Pfundtner.
That number may sound like a lot, but when you take into consideration the previous year was more than double and in 2010 there were nearly 500 applicants, you can see the reason for concern.
The biggest struggle seems to be in finding substitute teachers and specialty teachers.
"The technology education teachers, bilingual teachers, teachers who speak Spanish and also school psychologists," explained Green Bay Area Public Schools chief human resources officer, Jean Marsch.
The Green Bay district isn't reaching outside of state limits yet, but they're being forced to get creative to find candidates.
"We've had two substitute teacher fairs in our district in the last year," said Marsch.
In Pulaski they're occasionally combining classes to adjust among other tactics.
"Sometimes we've had to change dates of our professional development offerings," explained Pulaski School District superintendent, Bec Kurzynski.
However Kurzynski says the biggest struggle is funding.
"People who are interested in those areas often find private sector employment that offers different benefits and compensation that we're not able to match," said Kurzynski.
School leaders say if this trend continues they will have to combine class sizes and cut certain education programs to make ends meet.
