Rochester Public Schools looking to fill nearly 300 positions as school year approaches

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – Rochester Public Schools (RPS) is gearing up for the start of the school year and working to fill nearly 300 job openings in the district.

There’s around 80 teaching positions open across all of the RPS schools. There’s also a number of custodial and nutrition services unfilled positions.

But the area that has the most open positions is the educational support staff. That’s paraprofessionals, playground attendants, and teaching aids. There are nearly 100 open positions.

RPS has hosted a number of job fairs every couple weeks throughout the summer.

For many of the positions outside of teaching, there are no Master’s or even Bachelor’s degree requirements.

RPS staff members say hires who are freshly out of high school are sometimes some of their most valuable members.

“They’re great, because they have those life skills that really connect with kids on authentic experiences so those are some of our most key people to connect and build credibility with students in relationships. So any level that you have, we’ll work with you to figure out what fits,” Dakota Middle School principal Levi Lundak said.

And RPS is hosting two more job fairs before the school year officially kicks off. Those are happening on September 2 and 7 from 12:30 to 4:30 at the Edison building.

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