Usually, the first day of school signals a fresh beginning, not the finish line of a long, grueling race. But Alex Moseman has always thought a bit outside the box.
For Moseman, the executive director of talent acquisition for the Knox County schools in Tennessee, the real work of staffing peaks long before students arrive. Hiring ramps up in the spring, stretches through the summer, and ends when classes resume. Only then does the district enter what Moseman calls the “HR offseason.”
That’s when Moseman, 37, and his team step back to examine bigger picture problems and test out new ideas—like an online employee-interest form that generates instant, personalized responses to job seekers, guiding them through next steps.
“That fall offseason is where we reflect or are building new things,” said Moseman, a 2026 EdWeek Leaders To Learn From honoree. “Then we’re ready to flip the switch when we get to the second semester, where we say, ‘OK, now we’re going to run hard and fast in this direction so that the principals have who they need.’”
The strategy has paid off. For two consecutive years, the 4,700-teacher Knox County district started the school year essentially fully staffed, even as districts small and large, in every corner of the country, are grappling with persistent teacher shortages.
Just a few years earlier, Knox County faced the same challenges.
At the start of the 2022–23 school year, the year prior to Moseman’s hiring, 78 of the district’s 92 schools reported at least one teacher vacancy, and about a dozen had two or more. At the start of the most recent school year, just seven schools reported one teaching vacancy, and none had more than one opening, according to school district data.
The turnaround is impressive, observers say, and the district’s year-round staffing approach has helped ensure students start each school year with stable, fully staffed classrooms.
Knoxville was a ‘blank slate’
Moseman was born and raised in Indiana, where he attended college and began his career as a Title I high school reading teacher for the Indianapolis public schools. He later worked as an admissions officer at his alma mater—Wabash College, a small liberal arts college about an hour north of his hometown of Bloomington—traveling the country to talk with students about higher education opportunities.
Over time, Moseman realized he didn’t want to be a classroom teacher. But he still believed deeply in public education.
“[I] believe in the power and promise of American public schools,” he said, which led him to take a job as a staff recruiter for the Indianapolis district in 2017.
In 2022, Moseman applied and was offered the Knox County role.
“I had never been to Knoxville before, so when I was offered the job, I was like, ‘Maybe we should go visit,’” Moseman said. Three weeks later, he started the job. He has remained there since, with his wife, Tracy Moseman, and their daughter, Charlie.
Moseman said the timing appealed to him: A new superintendent had just been hired to oversee the 60,000-student district, and the district felt like there was “a blank slate” for experimentation and innovation. He also saw opportunities to build partnerships with the nearby University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
Knox County doesn’t want to ‘miss out on anyone’
One of Moseman’s first targets was the district’s outdated employee-interest form—the first point of contact for many potential applicants.
Previously, the form was “one-dimensional.” After candidates hit “submit,” staff members had to manually sort the submissions and respond individually, slowing the process and risking missed connections.
Under Moseman’s leadership, the district built a new system. Candidates now enter their basic information—demographics, education level, and roles of interest—and receive an immediate response with suggested next steps.
If an aspiring teacher lacks licensure, for example, the system sends a list of resources for obtaining it. If they’re fully credentialed, they are connected directly with a recruiter for the role they are interested in.
“I wanted to confidently be able to answer the question, no matter who you are, what your background is, we can tell you what your first step is to become a part of KCS,” Moseman said. “One of my North Stars is I want to get to this 24/7 always-open concept so we can ostensibly handle and respond to any interests at any point of time and not miss out on anyone who wants to work here.”
Giving principals flexibility and trust
Another cornerstone of Moseman’s approach is a “flexible resources guide” that allows principals, at their discretion, to eliminate a vacant position in their schools and repurpose the associated funds to better meet their schools’ needs.
“It all spins around this fundamental human-capital question of, we want to make sure that we’re maximizing time, money, and people, but we want to do that in service and alignment to what are the unique needs of your schools,” Moseman said.
The model departs from traditional staffing formulas, which often allocate dollars for fixed positions, and instead gives principals more autonomy. The guide also encourages school leaders to think creatively about professional growth for current staff.
For example, a teacher could take on additional duties, like writing the school’s community newsletter each week, and the principal can take the money from a vacant position to create a “teacher leader” position for them. That means the additional duties come with a pay bump and title change, rather than just asking educators to do more work for less, Moseman said.
“We are a big district, and our budget process will never be fully inclusive of every single unique need,” Moseman said. “We need to create opportunities for principals who are closest to the work and ultimately most accountable for it, to have some say in how they move those dollars around in more strategic ways.”
At Christenberry Elementary School, Principal Tonya Cash, used a vacant teaching assistant position to create a full-time bookkeeping role to handle administrative duties, like securing substitutes and putting in work orders for building maintenance. She used the remaining funds to offer stipends for teachers taking on additional duties, like mentorship and instructional technology.
The moves have freed up more time for Cash to spend in the classroom.
“My number one goal is to be an instructional leader,” Cash said. “Now, being in the classroom is the thing on my calendar that’s taking up the most time because I could delegate things in a way that made sense.”
The flexibility signals trust, Cash added. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all.”
Progress takes time
Moseman admits he can be impatient.
Although the district’s gains are significant, he balances pride with the reality that large systems change slowly. His goal is to break the teacher shortage into “bite-size improvements” that meaningfully help principals compete for talent.
That philosophy resonates with Elizabeth Arons, the chief executive officer of the Urban Schools Human Capital Academy, a nonprofit that supports and develops districts’ human resources teams. Moseman participated in the academy in Indianapolis and continued working with the group after moving to Tennessee.
Much of Knox County’s progress, Arons said, stems from eliminating unnecessary paperwork and dramatically shortening the time between job offers and payroll eligibility—important in a competitive hiring market.
“That piece is so critical,” Arons said. “And Alex’s team has perfected it.”
Cash, the elementary school principal, has seen the difference firsthand. What once took weeks now takes hours.
Moseman is also cognizant of the fact that there is a ceiling when it comes to the metrics he monitors to gauge success. Knox County schools increased staff retention by 2.5 percentage points in the 2024-25 school year, for example, to about 92%, up from 88% in 2022.
He said he’ll strive to increase that rate to about 95% in the coming years, but it’ll never hit 100%.
“We also want people to be able to retire,” he said.
Managing the hiring marathon
The hiring marathon starts anew every spring.
Once March arrives, Moseman and his team enter full hiring mode. During that “in season” period, staff members focus only on urgent issues that directly affect hiring. Anything else gets documented and deferred.
If it’s not broken, he said, “we’ll write it down and figure it out in August.”
The discipline extends year-round. Moseman pushes his team to take on only initiatives that clearly align with their mission—even when it means saying no to good ideas.
“Strategy is pain, and it’s deciding to say ‘no’ to otherwise good ideas because they’re just not good for us,” Moseman said. “It’s really just the courage and confidence and expertise to walk away from things that, frankly, don’t fit in the model of what we want to accomplish.”
