KANSAS CITY, Kan. — The pressure is on for school districts to hire more staff as the year gets closer to beginning.

The Kansas City, Kansas School District held a job fair Thursday at Carl Bruce Middle School. That afternoon, they also held a session for retired teachers before the fair started. KCKPS leaders would like to hire retired teachers back, so they can be full-time employees again.

“It makes feel wanted,” retired teacher April Banks said in an interview with FOX4 Thursday. “I’ve always known that I have more to give to these kids because these kids are the best kids in the whole state of Kansas because they pull at your heart strings, and I would go back in a heartbeat.”

The district’s offering incentives for the retired teachers in order to get them to come back too. Total, they’re looking for 50 to 60 teachers and 25 bus drivers.

“We are just here to let the community know and the greater Kansas City area know that we are still hiring,” Assistant Director of Recruiting Cynthia Fulks said Thursday. “There’s still a place for anyone who wants to affect and be in students’ lives and how we can support them if they are just thinking about coming back from retirement, or if they have never worked in education before, and they want to get into education.”

There is another KCKPS job fair Thursday, August 4 at the districts central office on 59th Street. It goes from 4:30 until 6:30 that night. School starts August 15.

On the other side of state line, KCPS is holding a career fair Saturday, Aug. 6 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Manual Career & Technical Center, 1215 E. Truman Road.

Because of a state law that says school can start “no earlier than fourteen calendar days prior to the first Monday in September,” school can not start earlier than August 22 in Missouri for 2022-2023. That’s when school starts for KCPS.