The Paterson School District says it has been able to fill openings in New Jersey as the nation deals with a teacher shortage.

Districts are scrambling to fill jobs with two weeks before schools open statewide.

The Human Resources Department in the Paterson School District has been hustling to find hires and it’s working -- it's been able to fill 72 openings in the last two months.

The district was dealing with 168 teaching vacancies.

It’s not an unusual problem for school districts in New Jersey as more teachers leave the profession and fewer are joining the ranks.

Assistant Superintendent and head of hiring Luis Rojas says it's simple supply and demand.

“The demand for teachers is higher than the supply of candidates out there for us,” he explains.

Rojas, however, says the greatest need for him is special education teachers.

Rojas says the school was able to fill in the 72 teacher vacancies with the help of two full-time recruiters that the Board of Education granted him. They’ve hard targeted candidates at colleges, on social media and at five job fairs.

Around the country, teachers left the profession during and after the pandemic. In fact, 300,000 have left the profession in the last two years.

Some sited burnout from COVID-19, low pay and heavy workload.

In Paterson, Rojas says vacancies were not a problem before the pandemic. He says back then, 40 openings were a great number to fill. Now he’s got 122 left to fill.

Rojas encourages those who are looking for teacher jobs in the district to check its website. They are interviewing potential candidates all the time.