Fast-Track Teacher Recruitment - human resource administration in successful hiring and retention of teachers

School Administrator, Jan, 2001 by Franklin Dean Grant

Roadblock Alert: Keep it to these basics. The Web site development cycle is short. Plan a useful development and implement. Repeat. A basic Web site that is easy to use is always more effective than a complex site or one stuck in the planning stages.

Write simple, short instructions on how to learn about the district's vacancies and how to apply. List general areas or subjects in which you are recruiting. Often this is enough information for a teacher to contact you. Be sure to keep this site up to date.

Roadblock Alert: As you complete this process, great ideas will spring to mind. Jot them down for later consideration, but don't veer from course. Stick to the basics today.

* Days 3 and 4: Create new Web pages.

You will need two days to complete this because it involves new skills, lots of proofreading and plenty of patience.

Start by creating a graphic of your school logo. Your art teachers probably will be glad to assist with this. Students also may know how to help.

Roadblock Alert: Watch out for the "dancing clown syndrome." Complex graphics with moving images distract from your message and often cause technical trouble for teachers trying to use your Web site.

Put your information into Web pages. If you don't know how to do this, surely plenty of your teachers and students do. A secretary can type the pages up in a word processing document and save them as a Web page.

Roadblock Alert: Your technically inclined staff may want to plan an elaborate, advanced Web site. That's great. Jot down their ideas for later consideration and then return to your five-day plan. Stay on course.

If you already have a district Web site, decide on a highly visible link on your home page to your page containing information for teachers seeking positions. Consider labeling the link as "Employment Opportunities for Teachers."

* Day 5: Put your site on line.

This involves transferring your Web pages and your graphic to the Web server. Have a technical person take you, step by step, through this process. Write down the steps. This is called "cook-booking"--a simple recipe for success when followed exactly.

* Deal with the day after.

Once you have your teacher recruitment Web site on the Internet, don't forget to update it regularly. Ask the career planning office at the closest state university to review your Web site and provide advice on what will help teacher candidates to use your site.

Useful Features

District Web sites with the following features would be especially useful:

* Information about your school district, including your guiding philosophy, your student-teacher ratio, photos of classrooms and special programs.

* Information about your city and region, including photos, maps, fun things to do and nearby places to visit.

* Current job openings.

* Access to an on-line application form. This can be something as simple as a text form in Hyper Text Markup Language or a document in PDF that the teacher can print and fill out elsewhere or an electronic form linked to a database system. If you don't know what PDF documents are, ask anybody at your district office who browses the Web.