Teachers Needed In Dickinson - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Jobs in North Dakota continue to draw in people from across the country.

While many may think of oil related jobs when they hear of the opportunities our state has to offer, there are many other places looking to hire employees.

Tonight we travel to Dickinson, a town with a growing population, and a growing need for teachers.

<<Like many school districts across western North Dakota, Dickinson is enrolling more kids these days.

"So we continue to see our enrollment increase and see those numbers go up," Superintendent Douglas Sullivan said.

This school year they enrolled about 150 more students than last school year.

Enrollment is up, and, so is the need for teachers.

"Right now we have 26 positions open and those 26 positions represent approximately 11 percent of our licensed teaching staff," Sullivan said.

But this isn't the first time the district has dealt with the shortage of staff, last year they had to fill about 30 positions in the district."

"Last year as we concluded the hiring process, we filled 31 licensed teacher positions, which was about 13 percent of our teaching staff," Sullivan said.

A challenge new teachers have is finding an affordable place to live in Dickinson.

"We've seen when we were doing hiring and offering contracts that in the last two years, we've had four individuals decline a position because they couldn't afford to move here," Sullivan said.

Andrea Hall is one of the 31 teachers hired last year.

She and her husband moved to North Dakota from Virginia, when her husband landed a job with an Engineering Firm.

"I was certified in Virginia with pre K through six, so I was willing to take any position they had to offer, so I was excited to move from a third grade position to a fifth," Andrea Hall said.

Hall says it's been a great experience teaching fifth grade at Jefferson Elementary, but it did take her a while to get used to North Dakota's weather.

"I have become acclimated to the climate, it has taken some time but we do enjoy it," Hall said.>>

Sullivan says there are still plenty of positions open, so he encourages anyone who is interested to apply.