Havre Public Schools Job Fair draws impressive turnout

The Havre Public Schools Job Fair drew more attention than organizers expected this year, bringing in quite a few applicants for the district's various open positions.

An hour into the event's 4-7 p.m. session Tuesday at Sunnyside Intermediate School almost every booth was interviewing someone and most of the seats in front of computers had someone applying for a position, which Havre Public Schools Superintendent Craig Mueller said is really great.

"It's going very well, we're really excited about the turnout, and we're really excited about the school year starting."

Mueller said, at this point, most of the open positions at HPS are for paraprofessionals and substitute teachers, but they are also looking for food service workers and bus drivers as well.

He said it's tempting to say that the substitute teacher positions are the most important roles to fill right now, as they are the people with the most direct educational engagement with students, but all their open positions are critical ones really.

"It's difficult to gauge, because if we don't have bus drivers to get the students here, if we don't have food service to provide for our kids, we're in the same way, so they're all important," he said.

Mueller said he hopes the turnout will be a morale boost for staff going into the new year, which he said the district's many new administrators are working hard to make as great as possible for students.

He said most applicants were interested in paraprofessional and food service jobs.

One of those applicants was a new arrival to Havre, Mary West, who moved to Havre from Gatesville, Texas.

West said she heard about the event from a friend and when she drove by she decided to look into what they were offering.

She said Havre is definitely a new experience, but so far it's been a very good one.

"It's different but I like it," she said. "It's beautiful here."

Recruiter, HPS Special Education Director Cheryl Russell, said she'd seen four applicants in just an hour and change, which was more than she was expecting.

Russel said her booth was hiring for food service and she was happy to see so many people.

The booth at the fair hiring for the transportation department hadn't seen quite as much action as others, at least at first, but HPS Facilities and Transportation Director Scott Filius was optimistic.

"We've had one person talk to us, so it's a start," Filius said.

He said they're looking for a route driver, a relief route driver and an activities driver, the last of which they did have some leads on, but no commitments yet.

Overall, the event appears to have been a success, which Mueller attributes to some changes in how they went about scheduling and advertising the event.

He said they did a job fair last year but it didn't get the turnout they were hoping for, so this year the tweaked the scheduling and increased their efforts to get the word out about it, and those efforts appear to have paid off.