Rural schools court `homegrown’ teachers amid shortage
ELIZABETHTOWN, Ill. (AP) — Two summers ago, Hardin County Schools Superintendent Andy Edmondson was out for lunch when he bumped into Grace Vaughn, a Hardin County graduate who was home from Murray State University, waiting tables over break.
She didn’t recognize him, but he recognized her.
“He asked me about softball at Murray, how everything was going,” Vaughn remembers. “I told him I was going into elementary education, and he asked me to come in the next week and talk to him about working here when I graduated.”
Since that conversation, Edmondson has checked in with Vaughn every semester, she said, asking about her career goals and sharing job opportunities at the school where she grew up.
On Tuesday, Vaughn began her first day as a fourth-grade teacher at Hardin County Elementary School, almost immediately after finishing her teacher training.
“We’re excited about having a young lady with such a tremendous work ethic come back to our kids,” Edmondson said. “It’s going to pay dividends now and far into the future.”
And Vaughn isn’t Edmondson’s only recruiting target. He keeps tabs on a handful of other Hardin County products who are now in teacher preparation programs at Midwestern universities.
One young man is interested in drivers’ ed, health and physical education. Another young woman hopes to enter special education. Both are high-need areas at Hardin County and across the state.
“I played college football, and it’s a little recruiting,” Edmondson said, “letting people know they’re loved and appreciated, and the impact they could have on our schools.”
In his three years at Hardin County, Edmondson has lost at least a half dozen teachers to larger, better paying school districts, he told the Southern. Finding teachers...