LAS VEGAS – This school year, Clark County schools had to fill some 2,000 vacant teaching positions. That number is growing by 30 percent for the next school year.

Next year, school officials are anticipating 2,600 teaching positions will need to be filled, the Las Vegas Sun reports.

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They say about 2,000 of those can be filled by hiring locally and out of state, but they’re not sure about the other 600.

“I think now more than ever my team members are really focused on how to find those teachers,” Staci Vesneske, district human resources chief for the Clark County School District, says.

“Teacher shortages are not new to Las Vegas,” according to Vesneske. “It has just become harder because all of the states are experiencing a decline in teacher candidates.”

According to the paper, the percentage of students across the country graduating with degrees in education dropped from 21 percent in 1970 to a mere 6 percent in 2012.

Many states, including Nevada, are looking to alternative licensing programs to make it easier to enter the teacher ranks.

That can utilize the talents of those who have real world, often private sector experience, versus someone who obtained an education degree in the theories of teaching, without any real-world experience.

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Vesneske says Clark County’s program produced around 40 teachers each cycle previously.

Now it churns out around 200, according to the human resources director.

But that, along with other ideas, like promotional campaigns only get the district so far.

“Even if we hired every single candidate, it still wouldn’t be a third of our needs,” Vesneske tells the paper.

Clark County isn’t alone.

Arizona’s Casa Grande Union High School District, which has some 3,800-students enrolled, had 19 teacher openings at the end of last school year, according to The Republic.

Not a single person applied.

“When you have no applicants in your job pool, it is scary,” superintendent Shannon Goodsell says.

“Low pay and tough new expectations” were to blame.

In most districts, it is difficult for market forces to drive up teacher pay because unions negotiate pay scales based on years of employment, regardless of subject. many teachers feel under-appreciated because the value they bring cannot be rewarded through increased compensation.

The Huffington Post reports by the year 2020, there will be a “serious” teacher shortage, especially in critical subjects like science and math.