The Colorado Springs Gazette’s Debbie Kelley offers further insights into the state’s shortage of schoolteachers, and she looks at the issues from a frontline perspective.

After noting legislation recently signed by Gov. John Hickenlooper to study the shortage and ultimately make recommendations for legislation, Kelley talks to educators in the trenches. They’re the folks who must deal with the shortage day to day in their districts – and who probably won’t be holding their breath for the findings of the legislative study:

Schools used to set their sights on spring hiring to fill teacher openings for the next school year.

Not anymore.

“It’s hiring season all year long,” said Peter Hilts, chief education officer in Falcon School District 49.

The nationwide teacher shortage has seeped into Colorado and is creeping toward a crisis.

She also notes:

The state has an “urgent need” to develop teachers, said Kim Hunter Reed, executive director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education.

… About 3,000 to 3,500 openings need to be filled for the coming school year across Colorado’s 178 public school districts …

Kelley talks to rural school districts that have been waylaid by the critical shortage:

“We’re definitely seeing a lack of applicants,” said Tim Kistler, superintendent of Peyton School District 23-JT, an eastern plains district with 575 students. “In the last two years, it’s been a dramatic decrease.”

At recent job fairs, “out-of state people were coming in, offering signing bonuses and trying to take teachers away,” Kistler said. “It’s a little disheartening.”

The average salary in Peyton 23-JT in the 2015-2016 academic year was $39,413. That was 20 percent below the statewide average of $51,204, according to a salary survey Elizabeth School District Superintendent Douglas Bissonette conducted last year.

Kelley’s account breathes life into the academic and political debate at the Capitol. She also covers a lot of bases – offering the most comprehensive take we’ve seen so far on the issue. It’s worth a read; here’s the link again.