Claremont and Newport schools struggle to fill staff vacancies

Claremont and Newport schools struggled to fill open jobs heading into the new school year, and the gap was already forcing both districts to rely on costly contracted services instead of in-house staff. The shortage was being driven by fewer people entering education careers and by employers in other fields offering better pay, a combination that hits classrooms, special services and district budgets at the same time.

The vacancies were not limited to one job category. The staffing pressure stretched across teachers, paraeducators and support staff, the people who keep daily school operations moving and who are hardest to replace quickly when a district cannot attract applicants. New Hampshire’s Department of Education tracks district staffing reports, staff salary reports and a statewide Critical Shortage List built from input from school leaders, underscoring that the problem is part of a broader labor market across the state. In 2024, the department said educator renewals reached the highest three-year cohort on record, even as the shortage list continued to reflect the strain on teacher supply and demand.

In Newport, the hiring crunch landed on top of a brutal budget season. The School Board was cutting $2.2 million from the district’s proposed budget in February 2026, and in January it voted 5-0 to eliminate nearly $1 million from the next fiscal year’s proposal. That kind of financial compression makes it harder to recruit staff, and it also makes it more likely the district will turn to short-term fixes that cost more over time.

Claremont entered the summer from a similarly strained position. The district terminated 19 new hires in August 2025 as part of its financial crisis, and by May 2026 officials said the roughly $5 million deficit would be reduced to about $1 million by the end of the fiscal year. Leadership turnover in 2025 and 2026, including principal and superintendent changes, added another layer of instability to recruitment and retention.

The practical consequences in Claremont were already visible before. In August 2023, Bluff Elementary School could not fill third- and fifth-grade teaching jobs and had to organize multi-grade classes. That is the kind of change families feel first: bigger class sizes, merged grades, disrupted schedules and, in some cases, fewer programs or services. If the vacancies now facing Claremont and Newport persist into fall, both districts will spend more to hold things together while students and staff absorb the strain.