The Kirksey Middle School bleachers were packed on Thursday evening with nearly 200 people looking for a job at Jackson Public Schools. 

Among the crowd was Sade Montgomery, who was nervously thumbing through copies of her resume. Even though she isn’t certified to teach, Montgomery was looking for a job that would let her spend more time with her 5-year-old daughter. She thought the fair was a good place to start.

Devante Horton, just a few bleachers down, had a similar idea. The 22-year-old — suited up, with a Jackson State University pin gleaming on his chest — attended Jim Hill High School and later studied political science in college. But after graduating, he’d had some trouble finding a job. He decided he wanted to try his hand at teaching.

“I want to give back to my city and the district that I came from,” Horton said. “I’m nervous, but I feel like I’m going to leave here with a job.”

Both Montgomery and Horton had a lot of options in front of them — nearly all of the district’s schools were represented at the job fair, as well as several central office departments. And as they went from table to table, Tommy Nalls, who’s in charge of recruitment at JPS, stood off to the side, watching.

As of last week, about one in four Jackson Public Schools teaching positions remained unfilled. Though district officials noted that count includes jobs that are pending hires, that’s higher than the state’s teacher vacancy rate, which sits at about 16%, according to the most recent data.

Nationally, teachers have been in short supply for years. The issue, worsened by the pandemic, stems from a combination of factors, including low compensation and difficult workloads. It can be even harder to staff classrooms in districts such as Jackson Public Schools, Nalls said, which faces unique challenges because it serves a high population of students from marginalized communities. 

One way JPS is combatting the shortage: Taking advantage of alternate routes for people to become certified teachers. Nalls took advantage of one such pathway himself when he entered the education field two decades ago. 

“Honestly, at first, I was a lot like these people here,” he said, gesturing to the job fair attendees around him. “I needed a new job.”

Nalls, who has a biology degree from Tougaloo College, worked at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and AT&T before a friend suggested he should look into becoming a teacher. He happened to be at the right place at the right time — Nalls was dropping off his information at the district’s administrative offices when Murrah High School’s assistant principal walked in and said they needed a science teacher. 

Nalls got his start in teaching after the district requested a provisional license for him — which is what the district will do for job fair hirees without teaching certifications. 

“What we do as a district is once we get them hired in a position they’re qualified for, we request a provisional license from the State Department of Education,” he said. “Then, during the year, we coach the teachers on certification, so we advise them on what tests they need to take and where the programs are that they can complete in order to become certified. And if they need assistance with the Praxis test in some of our hard to staff areas, we even provide vouchers and preparation to help them study for those exams to become properly certified.” 

According to Nalls, the district’s strategies are working, but they’re up against more than low pay and worsening student behavior. Teaching, he said, is no longer a sought-after profession.

A few years ago, he asked a group of educators to raise their hands if they spoke to their own child about becoming a teacher. Out of a room of 30, just four or five people raised their hands. 

“I’ll never forget that,” he said. “We have to do a better job of championing education within our community … There are issues, of course, but we have to help people realize that it’s just not as bad as they make it out to be.”

After about an hour, Montgomery hadn’t gotten a job offer, but several schools had expressed interest — she was especially excited about one in particular that was just down the road from her daughter’s school. 

“The only thing that I’m a little nervous about is the pay because I know it will probably be a pay cut,” she said. “But I think it’s worth it to be able to be with my daughter.”

Even as the crowd thinned out, Horton stuck around, diligently visiting every table. By the end of the two-hour job fair, Horton had received a couple of job offers. 

And after mulling it over, Horton on Friday accepted a position teaching 9th grade social studies at Jim Hill — his alma mater. He said he’s most looking forward to bonding with his students when school starts in a few weeks.

“For me to be able to go back and show them that somebody actually came from the same seat that you all are in, went to college, got his degree, and is now working in a professional field, I can show them that you can do it as well,” Horton said. “It’s a surreal feeling.”