BATON ROUGE - As school districts nationwide are grappling with an overwhelming loss of teachers and staff, school board officials are beginning to think outside the box in order to reel new professionals into the industry.

However, instead of focusing on recruitment, East Baton Rouge Schools are focusing on retaining the workers they already have. 

“You can recruit all you want, but if you’re not retaining them, it means nothing," said Nichola Hall, Chief HR Officer for EBR Schools. 

One step they're taking, is growing their support system internally and adopting an open door policy for all employees, not just teachers. 

“Whatever your situation is, we want to talk, whether it's first year, 10 year, 20 years, what can we do to retain you and make you happy? Because I firmly believe that happy employees do stick around," Hall said.

The parish school board has also hired a consulting firm to do homework on what school staff think about their salaries to determine what changes are most beneficial. The results of this study will be presented to the school board in June, with hopes of gaining the attention of local and state lawmakers for more funding.