AMARILLO, TEXAS -- Following the tax-free weekend, backpacks are full, and new clothes are being laid out in anticipation of the start of a new school year.
And getting the staff of more than 4-thousand in place is a year round effort...but Amarillo's schools are staffed and ready to meet the challenge.
The empty halls will soon be a scene of controlled chaos as the first school bell rings in the new year...and behind that, more than 25-hundred teachers will be in place. and that's something the personnel department of the AISD works on constantly, according to John Hancock, personnel director for the Amarillo Independent School District.
"We've had a plethora of people that want to work for us....and it looks like this year, we're all hired up."
He adds staffing some of the areas in science and math can be challenging, but this year, they're up to speed and ready to meet the challenges of a new year.
"We're always a little short on Math and Science with high school applicants and tough to find but this year we've managed to get everybody hired at this point--never know what's going to happen on the next day."
Usually later in the year, around 10% of the workforce may be out on any given day and by the time the year ends, the district will have signed up close to a thousand substitute teachers.
A wide open field if you're looking for some part time work.
"People who have 60 credit hours can work for us all they need to do is call personnel office and set up an interview with myself. We probably carry over about 450 subs which people don't realize..at the end of last year, about 900 subs were working in our pool," said Hancock.
And it's never too late to sign up to be a substitute and lend your talents to the district as well.
Hancock and a host of principals will be meeting with substitute teacher candidates in the next couple weeks to make sure they've got the necessary support staff in place when the new school year starts up.
