Fight or Fix? The Competition for Teachers - school district partnerships in recruitment of teachers

School Administrator, Jan, 2001 by Esther B. Coleman

Through field trips, workshops, counseling sessions and internships, potential teachers explore the benefits and challenges of a teaching career, identify financial resources and receive professional support.

The Hampton City Schools is collaborating with the Norfolk, Isle of Wight, and Suffolk school districts and Hampton University on Project EXCEL, which selects and supports current school district employees to participate in a master of arts program leading to teaching certification in emotional disturbance, an area of pressing need. The university provides tuition and a stipend through a U.S. Department of Education grant. The schools provide full-time teaching positions.

Those who complete the program also become eligible for a Ph.D. program at the College of William and Mary.

Fixing It Together

Some school personnel directors offer glowing testimony to the value of partnerships, as opposed to competition, from their actions.

Bill Trost, personnel administrator in the 5,700-student Shaker Heights, Ohio, City School District, has found great value to being involved in a local consortium involving 19 Cleveland-area school districts. The consortium started five years ago and now includes a diverse array of school systems. Trost often shares the names of candidates with other human resource directors.

"Once I interviewed a prospective teacher who told me that her heart was with a larger district serving mostly African-American students, Our district is about 52 percent minority. I immediately called colleagues in partnering districts with those demographics," Trost says. "She is happily working for one of them now. In turn, I have had teachers referred to our district by our partners."

When the challenges to find enough quality teachers for our nation's classrooms seem daunting to educational leaders, meaningful collaboration can help. Undoubtedly, we all have the same focus: improving student achievement with the highest-caliber teachers. This laudable goal demands that we cease competing and work together in partnership to recruit a quality teacher for every classroom.

Esther Coleman is executive director of the American Association of School Personnel Administrators, 3080 Brickhouse Court, Virginia Beach, Va. 23452.

Competition vs. Collaboration: Two Supes' Views

Esther Coleman, executive director of the American Association of School Personnel Administrators, asked several school district administrators about their views on the competition today among school districts for qualified teaching candidates.

* Why is heavy-handed competition between school district recruiters not in the best interests of public schools?

Mark Edwards, superintendent in Henrico County, Va.: "When public school districts engage in heavy-handed competition, prospective teachers are bombarded with information. They are often pushed to make 'on-the-spot' decisions as opposed to analyzing carefully what may be the best fit for them. Additionally, candidates are wooed by businesses. School districts will never have the resources to compete, so it is ill advised to engage in inter-district battles. Moreover, districts may become very negative about each other."