March 16, 2026
Episode 65: How Principals Can Hire Great Teachers in a Shortage: Recruiting, Retaining, and Building a Teacher Pipeline (2026)
Connect with the Show Here! Hiring in education isn’t just “hard” right now, it’s faster, noisier, and far less forgiving than it used to be. If you’re still waiting to collect a perfect candidate pool before you act, you’re probably watching your best applicants accept offers somewhere else. We talk candidly about what the 2026 hiring cycle looks like from the principal’s chair, including contract deadlines, early retirements, surprise resignations, and why math, science, special education, ...
Hiring in education isn’t just “hard” right now, it’s faster, noisier, and far less forgiving than it used to be. If you’re still waiting to collect a perfect candidate pool before you act, you’re probably watching your best applicants accept offers somewhere else. We talk candidly about what the 2026 hiring cycle looks like from the principal’s chair, including contract deadlines, early retirements, surprise resignations, and why math, science, special education, and skilled technical positions can feel impossible to fill.
We walk through practical teacher recruitment strategies that help school leaders hire smarter and move faster without sacrificing fit: tight interview timelines, backup plans for finalists, real reference conversations, and the value of trusting a consistent hiring team. We also dig into long-term educator pipeline work, like growing your own teachers through student pathways, student teaching partnerships, and para-to-teacher or transition programs that turn strong candidates into future classroom leaders.
Then we get honest about the parts many leaders underestimate: school culture and school branding. Candidates research your building online, and your social media can either tell a clear story of learning and belonging or leave a blank space. Pair that visibility with retention systems like meaningful professional development, mentorship, and PLC collaboration, plus competitive pay and benefits, and you create the kind of workplace that recruits for itself.
Subscribe, share this with a school leader who’s hiring right now, and leave a review so more principals and HR teams can find these teacher hiring ideas.
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Click Here to Connect with Principal JL:
00:00 - Why Hiring Feels Broken
03:26 - Deadlines And The New Hiring Calendar
06:18 - Speed Matters More Than Ever
09:11 - Hard To Fill Roles And Reality
11:07 - Grow Your Own Teacher Pipeline
14:23 - Running Interviews Like A Sprint
16:59 - Reference Checks And Trusting The Team
19:26 - Social Media Branding That Attracts
21:47 - Creative Staffing With New Endorsements
23:33 - Retention Systems That Keep Teachers
28:08 - Benefits And Pay As Recruiting Tools
31:14 - Five Hiring Principles And Next Steps
WEBVTT
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What if the biggest hiring problem in education is not just a teacher shortage, but the fact that the old way of recruiting no longer works?
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In today's episode, we're talking about how school leaders can hire smarter, move faster, build strong pipelines, and create the kind of culture that great teachers actually want to join.
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In this episode, I'll be looking at my own journey when it comes to hiring in 2026 and what we can do to get the kind of teachers our students deserve in the classroom for next year.
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Now let's get to the episode.
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All right, everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the Educational Leadership Podcast.
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Today I am going to be talking about a topic.
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You know, I'm going to talk about it every year, about what's going on in hiring and education for this year.
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And I am telling you, every year I'm learning something new.
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And every year there's just movement and the way things go.
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It just boggles my mind, you know, when you're trying to hire teachers for the next year, what that looks like, what that's going to look like.
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You know, for me, you know, I it's just been just kind of a crazy whirlwind of kind of what it's been like on the you know hiring cycle for this year.
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Now, some things that I've learned so far.
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I've actually been kind of reaching out and talking to other people, kind of how they hire.
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Now, I have understand not every district is in the situation I'm in, and I'm not in the you know, a situation everybody else is in with their district.
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I understand that there's some districts out there that aren't even hiring yet.
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They're actually trying to get their budget set up so they can hire.
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So to me, that's crazy because like here in Nebraska, we have to hire.
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Like this episode's coming out on March 16th.
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I had to get people hired by March 15th so I can get people to come to my school without them not being able to get out of their contract.
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So in Nebraska, a lot of schools have moved up the date of committing to their home districts.
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So if I can hire somebody before March 15th, that gives them a chance to tell their other district, hey, I'm not coming back, I'm taking a job over in Hastings, Nebraska, where I want people to come, right?
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Yeah.
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So um honestly, you know, it's kind of been a crazy whirlwind.
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Like here in our district, we have people that can retire early.
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So they they just announced like in December, you hire retire early and we can start advertising for your job.
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And so I had a couple of those this year, and we were able to get those hires pretty quickly.
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It's the ones that catch you off guard that makes you go, wait a minute, what's going on?
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I mean, you you think you're gonna keep somebody, and then next thing you know, they decided they are going to move on, which is fine.
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There's a lot of movement that's been happening within my own district.
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I know there's a lot of movement out there as well, but the crazy thing is, is things fall in place.
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In my mind, I look at it as things fall in place the way they're supposed to.
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You're gonna get the higher people hired that you need to get hired, but you might have to think outside the box, you might have to get creative on how you do that sometimes.
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And so in this episode, I really want to talk about what are some ways you can try to think outside of the box when hiring, getting people in, and things like that.
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Because I know, like I used to be like, let's try to get a pool of people together, let's do a selection.
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You can't hold on to people's applications as long as you'd like.
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Because if I get a good pool of candidates, I'm gonna start interviewing, I'm gonna start trying to hire somebody because those good candidates will probably find another job if you don't pull the trigger quick enough on some of those hires.
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And so that's something that I focus on.
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Like, hey, like right now, I need math teachers.
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So you guys have math teachers out there, come on down.
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Love to love to have you guys be a part of my team.
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But at the same time, I mean I've sped people that I have to hire as well, and then I have to hire an STS people, and those are just some things that came up just in the last you know week or so.
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So for me, I was able to hire a really good English teacher, I was able to hire a band director, a couple of social studies teachers, counselor, a lot of good things, and a lot of reasons why these people are moving on.
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They're moving on because A, they want to get closer to home, B, they're retiring, C, I'm taking an opportunity to level up my career and take something that is you know good for me and my family.
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So I really you know appreciate all the things that are going on.
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And we have just some people that decide, hey, I'm gonna move along.
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And so, us, it's kind of crazy because it's kind of like, hey, I'm trying to hire this person, and then this person goes out of the picture because something happens, and then another applicant comes in.
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Okay, great, we're gonna put that person in there, and you're getting ready to hire that or interview that person, and the person you're trying to interview with that other person is now out of the picture.
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So it's kind of like, oh my goodness, all these puzzle pieces have been going crazy this year with trying to put things together.
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And for me, it's kind of like a big puzzle, right?
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I have my list of openings, I have my people, I try to do the hiring.
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And yes, I've had people tell me no, but that's okay uh when it comes down to it.
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That's part of the job.
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And for us, we try to line up like who's our number one choice, who's our second choice, who's our third choice.
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Because if we don't get our number one choice, we're gonna move to our second choice to try to get them hired.
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And we also have other districts that will reach out and say, Hey, we know you had a really good candidate pool.
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Could you guys recommend anybody that you may think that's still looking for a job and you know may need need a job or is looking to make a move, and we're able to help those districts as well, which is kind of fun to do as well when we are kind of like a principal's in our area.
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We kind of talk to each other about those things, which is really great.
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So, with that said, you know, that's just kind of like the crazy world of just trying to get people hired.
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Yes, I had some late people decide to resign their position, so now I'm gonna have to try to hire them coming up.
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But my biggest thing is gonna be tough because when you have a lot of teachers in like the math and the you know, the social state, not the social states, but the math and the sciences, special education, those type of jobs are really hard.
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Even the skill technical side is really, really tough.
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So I'm gonna talk about maybe some ways we're gonna think about how to fill those positions coming up.
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Because you never know like what's gonna walk through the door, you don't know what what applicant you're gonna have come down.
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We still have some time because right now it's March, you know, we got a good month to really start, you know, before we still really start going, oh my goodness, we may not fill this position.
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But with that said, I kind of want to talk over some things that I've talked about in the past, but you know, what are you guys doing?
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What what are some things you guys are seeing out there as you're trying to hire?
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Have some of you guys not been able to hire yet because your district has the budget first.
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I'd like to hear from you.
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Or are you guys already hiring and you're trying to like hammer things down?
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Like for us, we're trying to get things done by March 15th.
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Now we're between that March 15th and April 15th is a really you know a big time for us to try to find some people because once we hit about April 15th, you know, it's kind of dead in the water here, but we could get some candidates in the summertime that might pop.
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That happened for me last year where I was having trouble finding a counselor.
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But the counselor showed up at my doorstep in late June.
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She was a great hire, but for us, and we knew it wasn't gonna be a one-year deal.
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And so, really for her, moving on, was really happy for her, but she did we had early enough to where we were able to find another great candidate to slip into that position as well.
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So, with that said, you know, I've also noticed like I'm starting to see, I don't know if you guys are, but I'm starting to see like the teacher education programs are starting to pick up some steam.
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I'm starting to see more student teachers out there and more people like coming into our building and student teaching and getting into education because I think the word is out like, hey, education needs people.
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And I think you know, we're having a lot of success in the transition side, you know, where we're trying to hire people that have degrees but go through a transition program.
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Uh, we have a couple of people uh programs that will do that in the state of Nebraska.
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I know of two for sure, one in Doan and one in University of Nebraska Carney.
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There could be others, but those are the ones I know for sure that do those type of programs for for those people that would love to become teachers.
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And so, with that, one thing that we do here is we try to grow our own.
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And so we have a work-based learning program where we get kids being a parent in an elementary, and hopefully we'll get them encouraged to go become teachers.
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We had about five students last year that did that.
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This year, I don't know the numbers, but we have some more kids in that boat as well.
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But we're also looking at this educator rising program, and so we want to start creating a pathway in our school for our students so they can start thinking about education as a career.
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I think that's a really important thing for schools to look at doing is how can they help their kids, you know, become want to become teachers, you know.
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How do you have programs to establish that?
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And with our new curriculum director, I know that's a pathway that we have coming down that pipe in the future is something we really want to get going.
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Something we've talked about, but now it's like let's get it going, let's get some things going on that end.
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And some things, you know, I've done is I've hired paraprofessionals that I knew were gonna be in education to try to recruit them.
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I did that, I was successful.
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I was able to hire that teacher that um, you know, a teacher because they were paraprofessional with me, got to know them for the last few years, and then when it came down to it, we had the opening, we were able to interview, we're able to get those things locked in.
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So that worked out as well for us as well.
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Now, there's some different things there when it comes down to just recruiting.
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You know, recruiting is just a little bit different than it has to be than it has been because I know our uh you know, our human resource guy, he goes out and does all the career fairs, and sometimes he's just man, I just I don't see a lot out there.
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I'm not getting a lot of good opportunities.
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They're there, but it's just not you know, it's it's been hard.
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So there's some other ways I think we can recruit to do some things a little bit better.
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Now, here's some other things.
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If you're if you can get people invested in your building to maybe go become teachers, like I'm looking at paraprofessionals.
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If you have paraprofessionals that you know would be a good teacher, there are programs out there, and I know of one for sure at Grand Canyon University where they have a para-to-teacher pathway where you can take a pair and they could become a teacher, and they could go through the program.
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Because if you have great paras, then they could probably be great teachers down the road.
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So look at those things as well.
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When it comes to hiring, like I talk about speed is the name of the game.
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You do not want to wait for Monsana in to try to hire somebody.
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If you get a good candidate pool, I remember this phone call.
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My HR director calls me and said, Hey Jeff, you have X amount of people in your pool for this job.
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I would not wait too long.
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I've been to a few job fairs.
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You know, you have a good number, start looking at those and get going.
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And and I was like, okay, you know, I was wanting to wait a little bit just because we knew we had some more openings and we're trying to see if we can attract a few more, but we got some things going.
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We're able to interview, like, was it two weeks ago?
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Because it's last week, we just finished spring break.
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Two weeks ago, before spring break, I set a whole week with me and my admin team and the teachers and the people I bring in for interviews.
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We had 12 interviews in four days.
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That's where I hired four people in that time frame, and it was just nuts how I just have like we just blocked up.
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We got to get this done because we have to get things done in a certain amount of time.
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And so I really appreciate my human resource director reaching out and said, Hey, buddy, get going on this because we don't want to waste time.
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And we don't, we don't want to waste time, but at the same time, I don't want to go too fast, but I want to go too slow.
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It's kind of one of those, it's a balance, right?
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And there's some things that we thought, hey, we had some good candidates, and we've had some people back out, you know, trying to set up things.
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We've had people come in late and we're able to, oh, and they end up becoming a great candidate, and we ended up hiring them.
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So there's a lot of movement, a lot of things that I've learned throughout this last year.
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So A, you know, you want to be smart about how you do it, but you also want to move quickly to get those hires.
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And for us, you know, I didn't have to start hiring people in November this year.
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Thank goodness I had everything filled up for that.
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But I did start a hiring in January for my retirees, and so I was able to get those done really, really quick.
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Um, actually, I hired my first one in December, to be honest, because I knew there was a hiring, a hire the retiree coming up, and for me to get that person in that I wanted in was really, really good.
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So yeah, I had my first hire in December, had a couple hires in January, a few, and then now that week-long juggernaut of interview interviews in that first week of March.
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We got some people hired up.
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But right now I'm sitting okay.
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I got about three positions, but a lot of those openings are for good reasons, people moving on, doing some other things.
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But I'm really happy for the people that are moving on and doing the great things that they are about to do.
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Now, we also try to do some reference checks before the interviews.
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If we can, you know, like it's not just myself, but my assistant principals also help with the reference checks with they'll call people they know.
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We may not like read the references, but we'll know some people that would know that person or work with them.
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We really want to know what that person's like to work with because you can read a reference check and they're all gonna be about the same.
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So for us to know what we're getting before we get in there, but we also can ask some questions based off of the information we find to try to dig in a little bit to see if they're a good fit for us.
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And you know, we always want to trust our hiring team.
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So I have a team of people that we hire with, and I trust their judgment a lot of times, like 95-98% of the time, we all like think the same things.
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There's times where we hire actually, we did hire an AD, and there was that was a kind of an interesting process for us because we didn't always agree where we wanted to go with that, but that's okay because as a team, we're able to talk those things out, and then yes, we were able to hire the person that we hired, and we felt like it was the best fit for us and the best person moving forward.
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So, with that said, I forgot about uh hiring an AD.
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I had to do that in February, but at the same time, that's due to retirement.
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You know, I really appreciate my AD that I've worked with the last you know four years now, and now she's gonna move on and become an assistant AD at the college here in Hastings.
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So really happy for her.
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But nonetheless, I'm saying like trust your team when you're hiring because they're gonna be able to, you know, have their perspectives.
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But a lot of times, you know, you'll have a good idea if you guys are gelling on what you guys are looking for in that hiring process.
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Now, one thing I want to really kind of bring out is the branding of your school, what you guys post on social media, how do you get the messages out, how you brand and how you do the great things that you do in your school is I think that's really, really important because I'm gonna tell you a story here.
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We're in the middle of our English panel, we had like five really, really good, you know, candidates to become a next English teacher coming in.
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It was really tough, I'll tell you that.
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But through that process, I started noticing some of the candidates were talking about things that were posted online.
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So I knew they were researching, I knew they were starting to look into our school.
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And guess what?
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A lot of the reasons why we got some really good candidates was because they saw the great things that were going on in the school, they saw the social media posts, they see all the different activities and the things that we are doing, not just athletics, but activities and classrooms.
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That attracts people.
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People want to be a part of something like that.
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When they see your culture showcased out there and they want to be a part of that, I mean that's gonna draw some high-quality people in.
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So do not do not underestimate the power of having a strong brand, being able to post all the great things that you're doing, controlling your narrative out there, because that's gonna draw people in on your platforms.
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People will look at Facebook, people will look at Instagram, people are gonna look at X, guys.
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They're gonna do it.
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If you have content out there, they're gonna look it up, they're gonna see it, and they're gonna want to be a part of that.
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Because a lot of people want to be a part of something bigger than themselves.
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So, with that said, really have a strategic plan for that so you guys can bring in more quality people when it comes to that.
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But also, it's showing your culture, it's showing your classroom, it's showing your student successes and your activities and athletics as well.
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I think those are really important.
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And of course, I'm talking as a high school principal, it works as well with an elementary or a middle school as well.
00:19:47.779 --> 00:19:52.979
Post the great things going on in your building because people will want to be a part of that.
00:19:53.219 --> 00:20:00.739
So, with that said, there's some other ways that we are looking at hiring a little differently than I have in the past.
00:20:00.899 --> 00:20:22.259
So, here in Nebraska, it started last year, but it's really gonna probably kick in this year some more, to where if you have teachers that want to teach something else, they can go and do a praxis exam or a content-specific exam to where they can pass that exam and get that endorsement.
00:20:22.339 --> 00:20:24.659
And that might be something I have to use this year.
00:20:24.739 --> 00:20:28.259
I'm not there yet, but that is something I'm thinking in the back of my mind.
00:20:28.419 --> 00:20:34.739
If I need to get somebody in the classroom in this setting, could I move this person over here?
00:20:35.139 --> 00:20:41.539
Hey, I open up this job, but I may have more luck hiring this position than I will this position.
00:20:41.699 --> 00:20:55.779
So if I can get five people for this position where this teacher was in this position, but they moved over here because they were willing to, and they took the exam to do that, and they got their credentials to do that, and I can hire this position easier than that position.
00:20:55.939 --> 00:20:59.859
That is definitely a game changer for me that I am looking at right now.
00:21:00.019 --> 00:21:07.859
I'm not sure if it's I'm gonna do it, but it is something I'm definitely thinking about when it comes to trying to figure out how to fill the holes.
00:21:07.939 --> 00:21:14.819
Because if I don't hire this, would be for at my skilled technical teacher, if I can't hire that, that means I'm gonna start canceling classes.
00:21:14.899 --> 00:21:18.659
I'm gonna have to like start taking away offerings, and that's the last thing I want to do.
00:21:18.739 --> 00:21:22.979
I want to make sure we have all the offerings there for our kids because they deserve it.
00:21:23.139 --> 00:21:32.579
I think that's really important to think about how how can you can you do these things, you know, to get people in the door and in the classroom for your kids.
00:21:32.819 --> 00:21:39.779
Now, with that said, there's a lot of ways to kind of hire, and I've kind of talked about a lot of them right now.
00:21:40.099 --> 00:21:43.379
Moving forward, we talked about just the endorsement part.
00:21:43.539 --> 00:21:46.739
Teachers can add those now, which is really good.
00:21:47.299 --> 00:21:49.059
Coming in, retention.
00:21:49.299 --> 00:22:00.179
Like, I think that one of the best ways to hire people in the future is retaining your own staff, like being able to retain the staff you have and hopefully they're happy with going on.
00:22:00.259 --> 00:22:05.619
That can't make everybody happy, but at the same time, they gotta be enjoying what they're doing, right?
00:22:05.699 --> 00:22:07.939
And how do you lead is really important.
00:22:08.179 --> 00:22:13.939
If you lead a school in a way that people want to be a part of that, that's important.
00:22:14.099 --> 00:22:34.259
You want teachers to stay, and retention is, I think, the number one way to make sure you're not getting into those, you know, teacher, you know, burnout, and you're not getting just basically so you're not having teachers quit because they're sick and tired of of all the bureaucracy that education can have.
00:22:34.419 --> 00:22:36.979
And we all know that this is a tough job.
00:22:37.139 --> 00:22:38.419
We know it's hard.
00:22:38.739 --> 00:22:44.179
People out there, you know, outside of education don't realize how hard it can be.
00:22:44.339 --> 00:22:46.259
Some of them do, some of them don't.
00:22:46.499 --> 00:22:52.739
But this is a tough job, it's a rewarding job, but at the same time, retaining your own staff is important.
00:22:52.899 --> 00:22:54.419
So, how are you supporting them?
00:22:54.579 --> 00:22:59.459
How they feel supported, you know, are you giving them meaningful professional development?
00:22:59.619 --> 00:23:02.339
Are you given professional development they actually are going to use?
00:23:02.499 --> 00:23:04.739
Are you just wasting your time with another meeting?
00:23:04.899 --> 00:23:07.059
I think that's important to remember.
00:23:07.299 --> 00:23:14.019
Have your professional development be relevant, have it be practical, make it usable, it's something they can take and run with.
00:23:14.179 --> 00:23:21.619
I know one thing we just did is we did breakout sessions in February for professional development day, and that was really fun.
00:23:21.779 --> 00:23:24.339
We had four sessions, they're about 15 minutes long.
00:23:24.419 --> 00:23:29.379
We rotate PDP through, and I thought it went really, really well the first time we really did that.
00:23:29.539 --> 00:23:33.299
But the teachers talked about hey, we got a lot of good out of that.
00:23:33.459 --> 00:23:44.739
Some, you know, some things we could get better, but we got a lot of good out of that because all the Things that we did were things they wanted to learn about and things they wanted to have more knowledge on that they could take and use in their classroom.
00:23:44.819 --> 00:23:46.179
So I thought that was really good.
00:23:46.339 --> 00:23:51.939
So having those types of professional developments is strong, is going to be really good for you.
00:23:52.179 --> 00:24:03.939
Now, having strong mentorship, I think when you can hook up a veteran teacher with a new teacher, and I don't care if your new teacher has taught for 30 years from another building, right?
00:24:04.099 --> 00:24:08.579
We have to set them up with somebody in the building that knows the lay of the land.
00:24:08.659 --> 00:24:14.339
They may be really strong at teaching, but they may not be really strong at all the things that's inside the building as well.
00:24:14.499 --> 00:24:15.859
So make sure you have that.
00:24:15.939 --> 00:24:19.219
And so for us, we have guide teachers, we have mentor support.
00:24:19.299 --> 00:24:22.259
We also have plc collaboration, big collaboration.
00:24:22.339 --> 00:24:26.259
If you have the ability to collaborate, that is huge.
00:24:26.419 --> 00:24:30.899
I think that's one thing that we can always say is we have collaboration in our school.
00:24:31.059 --> 00:24:39.219
We are a PLC school, we're gonna collaborate, we're gonna get down to nitty-gritty, we're gonna work together to help these kids learn.
00:24:39.379 --> 00:24:40.179
And guess what?
00:24:40.339 --> 00:24:41.939
Teachers need that.
00:24:42.099 --> 00:24:46.499
And if you don't have that and you're out of school, you don't have that, you got to figure out how to do that.
00:24:46.579 --> 00:24:50.579
You can do it at small schools, you can do it at small schools.
00:24:50.739 --> 00:24:55.779
Aaron Hansen has a book called The Singleton PLC, how to do it.
00:24:55.859 --> 00:24:58.339
You know, that's something you might want to check out.
00:24:58.499 --> 00:25:04.739
It's something that we utilized when I was at Southern Valley as well to kind of create our PLC teams.
00:25:05.379 --> 00:25:09.699
You know, finding ways, another way to support teachers, finding ways to make their job easier.
00:25:09.859 --> 00:25:14.339
If you can find ways to streamline things they're doing, make their job easier, guess what?
00:25:14.419 --> 00:25:15.779
You're gonna retain those teachers.
00:25:15.859 --> 00:25:23.059
And I think another big thing is you want those teachers out in the public talking about all the great things that are happening.
00:25:23.219 --> 00:25:29.459
Because when you support them and they're doing awesome things in your building, they need to, they're one of your best recruiters.
00:25:29.619 --> 00:25:31.379
They're out there talking to the people.
00:25:31.539 --> 00:25:38.019
That's gonna go around town, that's gonna go not just around town, but in your area, your region, your state.
00:25:38.179 --> 00:25:40.819
Actually, we had a few teachers that applied.
00:25:41.059 --> 00:25:47.299
I didn't get one of them, but they would say, Oh, oh man, we hear a lot of great things that are happening at Hastings High.
00:25:47.379 --> 00:25:50.979
We hear all these cool things that you guys are doing, keep up the great work.
00:25:51.059 --> 00:25:54.419
But I was like, Well, why don't you just like come on over?
00:25:54.579 --> 00:25:55.699
Like, come on, man.
00:25:55.859 --> 00:26:01.699
But at the same time, you know, we don't get everybody, but at the same time, there is that word on the street for us.
00:26:01.859 --> 00:26:21.779
There is that piece where people hear and see all the great things, and I think a lot of that has to do with a our staff is out there talking all the great things, but also we have you know our social media platforms, we're branding, we're doing all these things to make ourselves attractive to people, and it helps that our school board does a really nice job.
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