The Juntura School District will hire a second teacher in the coming months.
The rural school district, which has eight students enrolled this year, is adding a middle school teacher, according to Dan Pozzi, the Juntura School Board chair.
The district, which serves kindergarten through eighth grade, is seeking someone who can fit into the rural lifestyle and also can teach age-appropriate material separate from the younger students, Pozzi said.
He noted that when students reach fifth and sixth grades, a health class begins to get into topics that include human anatomy, which elementary students don’t need to be exposed to.
Pozzi said that the school currently employs one teacher and an aide, and has mostly elementary students with one middle schooler now.
He said that even in math and reading, younger students are not at the same level as the older ones, and it becomes difficult for one teacher to cover different material – and other grade levels – simultaneously.
“We want all kids to succeed,” he said.
While the teaching assignment seems to be in an idyllic location, Pozzi said, the job calls for someone with a “special” skill set.
He said living in a secluded, rural area is not for everyone. Juntura is over an hour away from Ontario and about three hours from Boise.
It’s a ranching community but it’s not like “Yellowstone,” the wildly popular television show about a Montana ranching family, he noted.
“People think living out in the middle of nowhere is this glamorous thing,” he said. “Well, it’s not. It takes a special kind of person to take that kind of seclusion.”
Pozzi said even ranch workers hired at his operation who have come into the job with an idea of what to expect have struggled with the isolation of the job.
He said while the person the board hires will be working at a school and interacting with students and staff daily, the remoteness of the position could still pose a challenge.
Pozzi said the district’s current teacher, Randi Johnson, has been in the position for two years. He said she grew up in 4H and FFA, and she had been in California, Nevada and Burns before moving to Juntura.
Johnson has a ranching and farming background and came accustomed to small-town life, he said. The teacher she replaced had grown up in Juntura and also had an agricultural background.
Pozzi said most of the parents are ranchers, and teachers have to understand that the students from those families won’t be in school when it comes time to brand calves on the ranch.
“They flat-out won’t be in school,” he said. “And they have to understand that.”
Despite that focus, he said, the board would be open to someone without an agricultural background. Pozzi said Juntura residents try to embrace newcomers to the community and make them a part of events and happenings.
The reality an applicant should keep in mind, he said, is that they are only “going to see the same 20 people.”
According to the job posting, the position pays between $53,00 and $61,000 annually with benefits.
Pozzi said the board has received about 20 applicants and will form a committee and begin interviews.
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