News Photo by Crystal Nelson Alpena-Montmorency-Alcona Educational Service District Business Manager Melissa Cook, Superintendent Scott Reynolds, and Executive Administrative Assistant Lisa Krey meet briefly on Monday for an update on employee hiring.

ALPENA — With less than three weeks until the first day of school, several Northeast Michigan school districts are still trying to hire some key positions.

Alpena Public Schools Superintendent Dave Rabbideau said openings remain in a number of categories, and specifically in special education.

While Rabbideau could not say how many positions the district has left to hire, the district still has 15 positions listed on its online jobs page. The positions listed varied as of Monday, and included relief bus drivers and cafeteria staff to instructional coaches, and both an elementary and secondary special education teacher.

“We don’t have as many candidates in our application system as we would like to see,” Rabbideau said. “It is certainly lower than it has been in recent history, but that’s a situation across the state of Michigan.”

Rogers City Area Schools, Hillman Community Schools, and Alcona Community Schools also have a number of vacancies listed on their jobs pages online, and officials with the Alpena-Montmorency-Alcona Educational Service District are still struggling to hire school psychologists.

AMA ESD Superintendent Scott Reynolds said the educational service district still had vacancies for school psychologists and speech therapists. He said district officials are exploring expanded contracts for teleservices, which other educational service districts in the state have also done.

“Ultimately, we want to make sure we keep a focus on providing quality services and sometimes we have to make sure we’re exhausting all options and being creative in order to do that,” he said.

Additionally, Dean Transportation has several positions vacant in Alpena, including a transportation supervisor position, a school bus attendant, and a school bus driver position.

If APS officials cannot fill every position before school begins on Aug. 30, Rabbideau said they have the flexibility to move teachers around and re-roster classes.

Rabbideau said flexibility would be based on student enrollment figures, which have yet to be finalized. For example, he said if the district’s enrollment were to increase, there would be some holes to fill.

“We will be able to cover the basic functions of the district, we might just have to make some modifications to how we do that, but we’re confident we won’t have any hole that we can’t cover in some way,” he said.