Brand new kindergarten teacher Alexa Byrd has a twinkle in her eye when she talks about beginning her teaching career. The sparkle comes from her excitement, her enthusiastic personality and from her glittery prosthetic eye. Byrd lost her eye to cancer at age 15, and it was a teacher—who gave her a box of fun and colorful eye patches—who helped her appreciate her own uniqueness and improve her attitude about school.

“So now I wear sparkly fun eyes, and so I get to be that for other kids, and I get to teach them their differences are what makes them special,” Byrd said. “I’m so excited I get to start their love of learning, and it makes me so excited to help them at an early age realize how fun school can be and make them feel special and that they can do anything in their lives.”

Jordan School District administrators share Byrd’s enthusiasm for the new school year because, for the first time in 10 years, they are beginning the school year with nearly every single position filled.

“The headline for a long time—or the narrative people wanted to push out—was this big teacher shortage,” JSD Communications Director Sandy Riesgraf said. “That pendulum has swung way the other way, and we’re excited about it.”

This year, secondary teaching positions had an average of 22.8 applicants, elementary teaching positions had an average of 40.3 applicants and special education teaching positions had an average of 13.2 applicants. Majestic Elementary Arts Academy Principal Marianne Johansen had twice as many applicants for each position than previous years, with one position receiving 52 applications. Because there were so many qualified applicants, she had to use “high bar, robust filters” to whittle down the candidates.

“We just started looking at who was the best fit for the school in general, and we even went down to the students in the classes and said, ‘Who do we think has the skills that would best fit this group of kids?’” she said. “I’m really excited about the people that we hired. I think they’re the best fit for our school. I think we’re going to have a great year.”

Johansen said the high number of applicants for each job opening occurred because there has been less teacher turnover. Jordan District hired 400 new teachers this year, about 50 fewer than last year.

“I think the fact that people are staying is a testament to the successful supports that I think particularly Jordan provides for their teachers,” Johansen said.

Culture, wage, mental health resources and innovative use of technology and AI are some of the things that new teachers said drew them to Jordan District. Byrd, who will be teaching at Columbia Elementary, appreciates the district’s culture of continual learning and support.

“I have an awesome principal, I have an awesome team, so I have nothing to worry about as long as I believe in myself, and I know there’s a support team behind me,” she said. “I just love the atmosphere and they want to be here to help me. They know it’s hard and they’re not throwing me out into the sharks.”

Mariah Tolman, a first year special education teacher at the new Juniper Elementary, said she was impressed by the support she received even before she was hired.

“When I was deciding to take this job, they reached out because I was a brand new teacher at a brand new school in SpEd, and I was like, ‘I don’t know if I should do this,’” Tolman said. “And then I had so many people reach out with supports. They said, ‘We’re going to set you up with this and this and this, here’s the person you can contact for this, and you’re not alone, we’re going to come out and help you.’ And that was really one of the reasons why I was like, ‘Okay, I can do this.’” λ