Natchez — More than two months into the school year, the Natchez-Adams School District still has 19 openings for certified teachers.

That number is down from 23 when school started in August, but still far above the state average of six posted openings, based on numbers from the Mississippi Department of Education. The average compiles data from 94 of the state’s 144 districts.

But surveys of Mississippi districts similar in size and community economics suggest hiring qualified teachers isn’t a problem limited only to Natchez.

The McComb School District reported four vacancies at the beginning of the school year, but the Vicksburg-Warren School District reported approximately 25 vacancies and the Greenville Public School District reported approximately 20.

Greenville’s Public Relations Specialist Everett Chinn said it’s not normal for the district to begin with so many vacancies. Chinn said the district had a number of retirements this year, and fewer students are graduating who want to become teachers.

“It’s a matter that’s affecting school districts across Mississippi and across the U.S,” Chinn said.

The executive director of the Office of Educator Quality at MDE Cerissa Neal confirmed the problem exists, but said the problem is in some areas, but not others.

Neal said the shortages aren’t caused by fewer college students studying to be teachers.

“We have been tracking the rate of certification of teachers in Mississippi, and we’ve not seen an alarming reduction in those numbers,” Neal said. “What we do find is we have geographical shortages.”

Certain areas in Mississippi are experiencing shortages, Neal said, such as the Delta, where Greenville is located. Neal said the reasons for the shortages differ from place to place, such as in West Jasper, where there is a housing shortage.

NASD Public Information Coordinator Steven Richardson said the district’s vacancies are due to resignations or retirements. One position, a reading interventionist, was added to help students with the Third Grade Reading Summative Assessment.

Since the first day of school, the Natchez schools filled three openings, but three other teachers resigned or retired.

Across the river, in Concordia Parish, the 2015-2016 school year started with no teacher vacancies, though.

That’s not to say Superintendent Paul Nelson and district administrators aren’t having trouble hiring teachers, though.

Nelson said the greatest difficulty is in hiring teachers for the high school grades.

“Your secondary grades are really getting squeezed when you’re looking for secondary people,” Nelson said.

It’s a problem the Columbus Municipal School District, which started off the year with only three to four vacancies, noticed too.

Columbus Superintendent Phillip Hickman said it’s difficult to find teachers for higher-level courses, because teachers aren’t paid as much as other possible professions for people with skills like engineering.

One solution, Neal said, is a series of incentives through MDE to bring in teachers from outside the state and get those within to relocate. The incentives include loan forgiveness, scholarships and reimbursement for moves.

Neal also encourages districts to think outside the box to utilize their resources.

MDE, Neal said, is encouraging districts to utilize resources they already have by recruiting within the community and helping teachers’ assistants and paraprofessionals continue their educations.

It’s a method NASD wants to try.

“The district currently has over 30 employees, who are not teachers, who have at least a bachelor’s degree,” NASD Superintendent Frederick Hill wrote in an emailed statement. “Our plan is to design an alternative certification program to get those individuals certified and promoted to teaching positions.”

Other districts have begun finding alternate methods, like expert citizen licenses. The license allows people with knowledge of a subject, but not a traditional teacher’s license, to teach in a classroom under a temporary license while they work toward their permanent license.

Chinn said Greenville submitted 100 license applications to the state for approval as of Sept. 30 for certified vacancies and support staff, such as teacher’s assistants and had not changed Oct. 15.

“Some of those expert citizen licenses were approved, and they are in the classroom servicing our children,” Chinn said.

Louisiana has a similar program, known as a practitioner license. Parish schools Personnel Coordinator Rhonda Moore said the district had six new individuals with practitioner licenses this year.

Eight days after school started, the NASD school board had signed off on 14 licenses for state approval. Three were approved by the state and two were denied as of Oct. 16.

Richardson said the three teachers who were approved will be transitioning into the classroom soon.

Other solutions to the teacher shortage include virtual learning, something some area districts say they’ve not yet considered, but a tool already in use in Natchez.

One example is the adoption this year of Edgenuity livestream software by Natchez Early College Academy and Morgantown College Prep Academy. The software allows teachers to teach subjects like Spanish and trigonometry remotely from across the state of Mississippi.

But the district won’t stop looking for traditional teachers either, Hill said.

“We are planning to attend over 10 college recruitment events between October and December,” Hill wrote. “This will allow us to tap into the recruitment pool and possibly hire December graduates to start working in the District in January.”

But Nelson said he believes the searches are not very fruitful unless a recruiter finds someone who already has a connection to the area.

“(Young teachers are) very reluctant sometimes to come back to Small Town, USA,” Nelson said.