The days of hundreds of applicants for a few teaching positions are well in the past.

On Monday, Warren County School District Superintendent Amy Stewart spoke to the school board about hiring season.

The district needs teachers to replace those who have retired or otherwise departed and to fill one new position — for an early childhood education program at Warren County Career Center.

“We have a lot of hiring to do,” Stewart said. “It’s a very busy time.”

The hard part won’t be deciding which applicants to hire.

While there were about as many applications as there were positions, some of the applicants put in for multiple jobs.

“We’re going to be working hard to get all the seats filled,” Stewart said. “We have 15 professional positions with a total of 10 total outside applicants.”

“We have positions out there with no applicants,” she said. “We have two Spanish positions with no applicants, we have a biology position with no applicant.”

The district can hire teachers who are not certified for the subject area, as well as people who are not teachers, to fill teaching positions. The district offers “emergency certification” to those teachers.

But, there still have to be applicants.

The district had almost 60 emergency certified personnel — most of them classroom teachers — as of March.

“The candidate for an emergency permit must have earned a bachelor’s degree from a state-approved college or university and must meet all other eligibility requirements,” according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

Those who teach for a second year on an emergency certification have to make a certain amount of progress toward attaining the proper certification.