Iowa school district offers incentives to battle against teacher shortage

Date:2025-08-27 21:38:21 Category:US Views:1 Comment:0

FORT DODGE, Iowa — Administrators in the Fort Dodge Community School District are adding incentives to battle the ongoing teacher shortage in Iowa.

Though the school year has started for most Iowa schools, there are nearly 500 full-time classroom teacher jobs that remain unfilled.

Fort Dodge Superintendent Josh Porter said that his district has implemented sign-on bonuses for many positions. Those bonuses range anywhere from $3,000-$5,000, depending on the position.

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Porter said that middle school positions are often the hardest to fill. The Fort Dodge CSD currently has 8th-grade positions open for a special education teacher, as well as a math and science teacher. All of those positions are being offered a $5,000 sign-on bonus.

“I think everybody’s kind of realized a middle school teacher can be a little bit struggle, especially science and math,” Porter said. “So we’re actually on our third year of not having a eighth-grade math and eighth-grade science teacher.”

Despite the recent teacher shortage and having vacant positions for this school year, Porter said that this year had the least amount of turnover compared to recent years. Three years ago, the district had to hire 17 long-term substitute teachers; this year, they only had to hire three.

Porter also said that while many school districts don’t publicize sign-on bonuses on Teach Iowa, many still do offer a bonus during the hiring process.

A list to all vacant classroom teacher positions across the street can be found here.