With August now here and September now in sight, Crookston Public Schools are working around the clock to prepare for the upcoming school year. One of the jobs that the School District office has been working hard at is looking to find people to fill essential positions in all three schools.
The School District is reaching out to the community for people to take the open jobs of paraprofessionals, bus drivers, kitchen helpers and cooks, and a full-time custodian at the Washington Elementary School. All of the jobs require at least a high school diploma or GED and offer training on the jobs from other members of the faculty, and while it is not a written requirement, the school requests that you enjoy working with people and children. “I think for most of these positions, the only qualification we’re looking for is the high school diploma or GED. I think beyond that, all of these positions, whether they have experience or not, they’re all positions that we can train people if they have an interest, want to come to work and be a part of a collaborative team, and school district,” Crookston Public Schools Interim Superintendent Dave Kuehn explained. “We’re here to serve families and specifically children, so if they like working with kids or being around kids, it’s a great opportunity to earn some wages but also help serve the school district and community.” For some of the positions that serve all three schools, such as the paraprofessionals and the custodians, the district will ask where they would prefer to work but will also place an applicant in the school where they believe their skillset will work best with the students and staff. “I think our paraprofessionals, we look to see what their skillset is, and I think we value the input of these individuals if they’re interested, and we think they’d be someone that we’d like to hire,” said Interim Superintendent Kuehn. “We like to ask them, “Where do you prefer?” and sometimes people prefer working with the youngest learners, and some like the middle-aged elementary, and some want to be more at the secondary level, so we try to accommodate a little bit of the interests of people that we choose for these positions, but there’s some like the custodian position, that’s usually locked into a particular building.”
For the Washington School custodian position, the job is a year-round job that would begin work as soon as possible and work to prepare the school for when the students return in September and continue work throughout the entire year. As for the other positions, they will begin work near the beginning of the school year and work whenever the school is open and in session. “When it comes to the other jobs, the food service, the paraprofessionals, and the bus drivers, they work when the kids are in school, other than some workshop days that we’ll do some training that they’ll be a part of,” said Interim Superintendent Kuehn. “But, other than that, their job and work is when kids are in school, which is from September 6 until the end of May. So you follow the kids. If they’re in school, we need to serve them educationally, feed them, and transport them.” Kuehn also mentioned that salary can be negotiated with the district based on their experience. All jobs will be under the school’s life and health insurance coverage for all of its full-time employees with a competitive benefits package, including vacation and sick leave days.
If you are interested in applying for any of these positions or have any questions about them, you can contact the Crookston School District Office at 218-281-5313 or go to the District’s Human Resources page at www.crookston.k12.mn.us/district-humanresources.
