New Canaan Public Schools started earlier than usual this year in seeking to hire for vacancies anticipated for next academic year, officials say.
Several of the positions—they include an art teacher, school counselor, special education teacher, psychologist and social studies teacher specializing in higher-level economics at New Canaan High School, grade five teacher and two French positions at Saxe Middle School, preschool and kindergarten teacher at West School and a district-wide psychologist— “are in process,” according to Darlene Pianka, the district’s human resources director.
“Many of the positions that I just reviewed will be selecting a finalist within the next two weeks,” Pianka told members of the Board of Education at their regular meeting, held March 17 in the Wagner Room at NCHS and via videoconference.
She added: “This process is a bit earlier this year, just so that you’re aware in the interest of, from our perspective, securing the best candidates in what now, depending on the position, could be a really shallow pool. So we thought we’d get started earlier. It’s done providing that we have a candidate that meets our expectations. So just because we’re starting early, if we don’t see what we need, then it goes back out and we wait and people make calls and we keep at it until we find just what we’re looking for. So I don’t want you to think this is an attempt to get it done quickly and make sure we have all the positions hired. We still have our standards and our process and we keep searching until we find the right candidate.”
The comments came during an update from Pianka on staffing and enrollment. The district’s actual enrollment as of Oct. 1 was 4,103 and the projected enrollment for the 2025-26 school year is 4,008, Pianka said. NCPS has also had five retirements in the school year, compared to eight the prior year, she said.
The prior week, several district administrators and managers received training in areas that range from screening to retention, Pianka said.
“In the conversation with the leaders, we stress that retention is really now more important than ever for our qualified staff,” she said.
The NCPS hiring process is rigorous, Pianka said, adding: “And as I’ve said to you before, one of my favorite comments that we get from people who are hired is, ‘That was the toughest experience I’ve ever had in hiring. But it was great. It showed me who you all were as a district, and everybody was so nice, even though it was really hard.’ I think that’s a very high level compliment and all of our candidates feel that way.”
In hiring, the Board of Ed seeks to build “a high-performing staff with a desire to constantly improve who enjoy their work,” Pianka said, adding that “we prefer a degree of longevity.”
“You all know that last year was a banner new teacher induction year—we’re hoping that’s not the case in the future,” she said. “And trends happen. We had some people retire, some people move away. But we’re really hoping that all of the new hires are really happy and doing well, and they’re the right people that we’ve selected. So they’re going to stay and have a career in New Canaan and to try and make sure that’s happening and that they have what they need.”
Ultimately, the measure of success in hiring the right faculty and staff is “all about the kids,” Pianka said.
“I think all of the administrators that I’m talking to are finding good candidates,” she said. “Except if it’s a really difficult area, as in special education or some of the helping professions, such as school psychologists. But we’ve also been doing well with those areas so far this year. And we’re well on the way to hiring some special education staff and two psychologists.”
Board of Ed members asked whether NCPS identifies areas of improvement from exit interviews (yes), whether NCPS tracks school-specific retention metrics (not formally) and whether the West School kindergarten retirement was atypical (no, a relatively long-serving teacher found something closer to home).
Pianka noted that she offers an exit interview with any certified staff member leaving the district and one major factor is the commute to New Canaan.
“They had decided that the distance and the traveling and the amount of time precluded them from being able to—these are typically people who have young children—be there in the mornings and be there in the afternoons for the events that they wanted to attend around their [own] kids,” she said. “So the ones that I had spoken to got jobs in local districts upstate. More often than not, it’s about quality of life these days. Those are trends that you read about with every profession. And that is one example of that. But generally, other than that, people are really happy to be here. They feel they’re compensated. Thank you for the negotiation of the new teacher contract—it’s all been really helpful and I’m hoping that it has a good impact for the future.”