THE ADAGE “if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail” is applicable to many situations, including human capital management in a school district, where you must be ready for both long-term and emergency absences. Forecasting staffing needs can set your school district up for success.

In our Northern California district with its 11 schools and 5,600 students in grades K-8, we regularly adjust our staffing levels to account for changes in student population to limit the impact of overenrolled or underenrolled schools and programs. We’ve succeeded in meeting staffing needs by accurately forecasting how many staff absences we’ll have, how many students we’ll have — and where those students will be — and then creating a plan to fill open positions.

Three strategies capture what we do.

» Pay attention to enrollment dates of magnet and charter schools.
We start our forecasting process in March when we have a lottery for our two districtwide magnet schools. Enrollment at these schools remains steady because they are in high demand, often with waiting lists of 100 or more students. The lottery, however, causes enrollment at other schools to fluctuate because schools lose students to our choice schools. If you have magnet schools or charter schools in your area, pay attention to their enrollment calendars and start your district-level planning then.

» Consider external factors, such as population shifts and business openings and closings.
We are located in the San Francisco/San Jose Bay area, a tech-heavy region with companies such as Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon. This makes us an attractive community to live in, leading our student enrollment to grow in two different areas because of new residential developments. As a result, we opened a new school this year and the community is lobbying for us to reopen another school to address the population increase.

Pay attention to development in your district — which neighborhoods are growing and which ones aren’t and which neighborhoods are drawing families with children. Pay attention as well to the business landscape. If a large business opens, it likely will draw people to your community. Similarly, if a large business closes or moves out of the area, families may relocate to follow those jobs or to get new ones, which also will impact school enrollment.

» Plan for absent teachers.
Planning for daily staffing needs is a predictable problem and one that can be forecast with considerable accuracy. You know in advance when teachers are going to be on vacation or doing professional development so you can schedule substitute teachers in advance for those dates. It’s also typical for more staff absences to occur around weekends and holidays, so districts should plan to have extra substitute teachers at the ready on those days.

Then there are the emergency and unplanned absences, which are harder to predict and can be more challenging to fill because they often occur at the last minute. It’s important to have a plan in place for filling these absences with qualified substitutes.

Our district adopted a hybrid system to fill teacher absences. We have a pool of about 20 substitute teachers, and we partner with an on-demand staffing service called Swing Education to provide additional substitute teachers during high-need times of the year and for last-minute absences.

This hybrid system allows us to be more flexible in our planning. We can grant more leniency for our own substitutes on where (and with whom) they want to work and use Swing substitutes to fill in gaps and to provide more support for high-need times, such as around holidays.

Staffing challenges have existed for some time, but if districts are proactive about forecasting their need and finding flexible staffing solutions to meet that need, they can ensure their classrooms stay fully staffed with quality teachers.


AYINDÉ RUDOLPH is superintendent of Mountain View Whisman School District in Mountain View, Calif. Twitter: @ayinderudolph