ST. LOUIS  • St. Louis Public Schools officials said Thursday they have found positions for more than two dozen teachers who have been drawing salaries without working.

The 26 teachers had started the school year on Aug. 16 without classroom assignments. Collectively the teachers were paid up to $40,000 this school year, district officials said.

Those teachers have now been assigned positions, said Patrick Wallace, district spokesman. Some of the posts are temporary and could change as enrollment stabilizes across the district. Typically, it takes about four weeks after school starts for this to happen, he said.

In eight schools, more than 50 percent of the teachers were reassigned in an effort to improve student learning. Partly as a result, 26 of the district's 1,900 teachers didn't have job assignments. The leftover teachers were certified for positions for which the district didn't have openings.

"They should have been used as substitutes, or in some way," Wallace said.

Some of the teachers now are working as substitutes or in clerical positions until permanent jobs open up.

The situation is common in the district at the beginning of any school year, said Ray Cummings, vice president of political action for the teachers union, AFT St. Louis Local 420.

"Every year there's movement because populations move," he said. "Staffing needs change."