Karina Alvarado spent hours this summer scouring Facebook Marketplace for plastic bins, shelves and books for her new classroom in Clyde Cox Elementary School.

She crisscrossed the Las Vegas Valley to fetch the goods, ensuring that her first-graders would walk into a presentable, inviting space Monday.

That’s the first day of school for Clark County students and, for Alvarado, the start of a new career chapter. The 36-year-old recently graduated from Grand Canyon University, fulfilling her lifelong dream to become a teacher.

As the first-day jitters set in, Alvarado said she’s reminding herself of the lasting impact she hopes to leave on her students’ lives.

“We’re setting them up for success; they’re in the primary grades,” she said. “I want them to love learning and not hate coming to school.”

Alvarado is part of an army of new teachers hired in recent months as the Clark County School District strives to fully staff classrooms before students arrive. It’s a lofty goal — and one Superintendent Jesus Jara hopes to achieve someday — but the large, urban district hasn’t quite met the mark.

District officials said 530 classroom positions remained vacant at the beginning of August — up from 408 last year and 355 in 2016. Still, it’s far below the peak of 944 classroom vacancies at that same time in 2015.

If those 530 unfilled positions were spread evenly across the district — which they’re not — that would equate to roughly 1.4 vacancies per school.

The numbers generally fall by the first day of school. The district hired 63 teachers in August 2015, for example, reducing vacancies to 881 by the start of the academic year.

But Andre Long, the district’s chief human resources officer, said the vacancy numbers have fluctuated the past few weeks. Some new hires simply don’t show up, and existing teachers leave for various reasons, he said.

The top reasons teachers gave for leaving at the end of the 2017-2018 school year were retirement, moving out of state or family and personal issues. One-hundred sixty teachers also said they were leaving the profession, according to district data.

The school district has hired roughly 1,400 licensed classroom employees for the upcoming academic year, Long said. He expects the vacancy number to be about the same Monday as it was earlier this month — somewhere in the neighborhood of 530 openings.

By comparison, the Los Angeles Unified School District hired 882 certified employees over the summer and is trying to fill 126 teaching and counseling vacancies, officials said. With more than 640,000 students, LAUSD is twice the size of Clark County.

In recent years, Clark County has hired about 400 teachers after the first day of school, Long said.

“We don’t stop,” he said. “We keep going.”

Butch Heiss, principal of Cox Elementary School in northeast Las Vegas, said the hiring journey proved more difficult this summer. He cold-called candidates who had applied for jobs via the district’s hiring portal but often encountered voicemails and rarely received a return call.

And even when he did line up people for interviews, candidates didn’t always show much interest. Six or seven people turned down an offer for one fifth-grade teaching position, he said.

“It was challenging this year,” he said. “No one can really put their finger on it.”

Long said the district received fewer applications this year despite new marketing campaigns, including billboards along Interstate 15 and advertising in T-Mobile Arena during Vegas Golden Knights games that targeted California visitors.

Recent national dialogue surrounding education may not have helped. Teachers protested throughout the United States, angered by what they described as stagnant pay and inadequate education funding. The so-called “Red for Ed” movement, characterized by teachers donning red shirts in support of public education, also coincided with growing concerns about school safety.

School shootings in Kentucky, Florida and Texas, which left a couple dozen people dead, thrust student and staff safety back into the spotlight — bolstered by teenagers who organized walkouts and other events to seek solutions.

On the homefront, the Clark County School District dealt with its second deficit in less than a year, slashing another $68 million to balance the books.

District officials blamed the budget crisis on an arbitration award that would give teachers a pay bump and increased health-care contributions. The school district filed a motion to vacate the arbitrator’s decision, but last week, a District Court judge denied that attempt.

It’s unclear what the school district intends to do next — honor the arbitrator’s decision or appeal the court ruling. The uncertainty, however, doesn’t sit well with teachers.

“We think this public narrative around ‘we’re broke and not paying anyone’ has not helped them in their recruiting,” said John Vellardita, executive director of the Clark County Education Association.

The budget cuts, at the very least, complicated the hiring process. They triggered a surplus situation that allowed employees whose jobs were eliminated to apply for other open positions within the district.

John Anzalone, principal of Sierra Vista High School, said he interviewed a physical-education teacher from Georgia but then had to pause the hiring process to let the surplus play out. The candidate then withdrew his name from consideration, he said.

Aside from that glitch, Anzalone said he got lucky with hiring and has a full staff heading into the new year.

“I used to have a lot more struggles hiring at Eldorado (High School),” he said, referring to his previous post as principal.

An open English teacher position at Eldorado High School, which sits in northeast Las Vegas, might generate two or three candidates, Anzalone said; whereas, a similar position at Sierra Vista High School — located in a newer, growing suburban area — receives triple as much interest, he said.

Ultimately, Heiss hired 26 teachers and three long-term substitutes over the summer for Cox Elementary School. Despite the difficult search process, Heiss called himself fortunate and said he found “top notch” teachers who displayed an ability to connect with children.

Alvarado, for instance, was born in Mexico and came to the United States as an undocumented child. She grew up in and out of foster homes and sometimes worried about when her next meal would be.

She knows her future students may be growing up in similar or worse circumstances.

“You need to be a voice for them because you never know what’s going on in their home,” she said. “I’m not a victim. I’m not going to be sobbing and crying and (saying), ‘Oh, I went through this.’ I’m going to use that to empower me and empower others who need my help.”

Her chance to do so starts Monday.