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OTTUMWA, IOWA -- In less than a week, students in the Ottumwa School District will be starting classes, and there will be a number of new teachers in the district.

Dr. Jon Sheldahl, the Superintendent of the Ottumwa School District, told KTVO about some of the new staff.

"We had a large number of retirees last year so we have 30 new staff actually that have been working since August 12th, last Thursday. We had them in Thursday, Friday and [Monday] doing various workshops and orientation. [Tuesday] all returning staff will come to work and we start with students on Monday the 23rd," Dr. Sheldahl said.

He added that the district is in "good shape financially."

"We were able to not raise our property tax levee this year, and we did have through our early retirement incentive last year, we had a lot of teachers retire," Dr. Sheldahl said. "And when that happens we're able to replace them with teachers, generally, that are a little less expensive. So all those things combined, I think, put us in a pretty strong position financially to go into a new year."

Dr. Sheldahl also discussed the new assessments of student learning.

"One of the focus areas that we have this year, especially at the middle school and high school, is developing new assessments of student learning. But I think it will be the same first day as it always is: kids are excited. I think they're ready to come back and we'll be ready for them and we're looking forward to a good year," Dr. Sheldahl said.