Kansas Jobs Feeding to National Online Job Database

All jobs posted on the Kansas Education Employment Board (KEEB) are now being fed directly to Simply Hired, a national database of jobs with approximately 2 million visitors a day. This allows school districts to advertise on additional websites without creating numerous job postings. Just post your job on KEEB and we'll do the work for you! The image above is the latest search results on Simply Hired for special education positions in Kansas. Stay tuned for news in the coming weeks related to additional feeds we are developing for other national websites.

Examining Retention Policies: What Should You Be Asking Yourself?

I attended a great session this week, at the United School Administrators Conference in Wichita, aimed at retaining special education staff. Dr. Victoria White and Dr. Ann George, both of Pittsburg State University, shared research related to special education teacher retention and offered ideas for assessing building and district level policies and procedures that promote retention in their Thursday afternoon session. They discussed ways in which districts can evaluate the feelings and attitudes of special education teachers, as it relates to retention. Below are just a few of the questions that Dr. White and Dr. George suggested in their assessment, which was adapted from the Council for Exceptional Children’s article Retention of Special Education Professionals: A Practical Guide of Strategies and Activities for Educators and Administrators.

• How do you present a “I want you to be here. You are important” attitude to your staff?
• How are you supportive of teacher decisions?
• How do you provide time and opportunities for collaboration among special and general educators?
• How do you provide mentoring experiences throughout your educators’ professional development experiences?
• How do you ensure that all educators are treated equitably?
• How do you ensure that all educators have access to materials?
• How do you ensure that the work environment is satisfying?

These are important questions to consider as we examine our practices related to not only special education teacher retention, but retention of all our education professionals. To read the full article visit the Council for Exceptional Children.

KEEB Activities at the United School Administrators Conference

The United School Administrators (USA) Conference will be taking place next Wednesday thru Friday in Wichita. KEEB will have a number of activities occurring during the conference that you may be interested in. During the exhibit hall, stop by the KEEB booth to learn more about KEEB, get assistance with your employer profile, or provide us feedback on how we can improve the system. Matt Blatchley, lead programmer on KEEB, and myself will be available to assist with any questions you may have about utilizing KEEB in your recruitment effort.

In addition, Thursday at 2:00, there will be a presentation on KEEB identifying new features that have been added, an update on the retention learning portal, and news on the first ever virtual teacher recruitment event. In case you are not attending, you can view and download the presentation below:

| View | Upload your own

We look forward to seeing those of you planning on attending the conference.

First Kansas Statewide Virtual Career Fair for Educators

The Kansas Recruitment and Retention Program will be hosting the first statewide virtual career fair for individuals interested in learning more about teaching in Kansas. The fair will take place in Second Life, a 3D virtual world that many Fortune 500 companies are now experimenting with to locate qualified candidates. The fair will be very similar to traditional career fairs with district booths and potential candidates walking through to learn more about job opportunities. During the fair, you will be stationed at a booth and have the necessary technology to speak with potential candidates. School districts participating in the fair will be provided with:

• Training
• Virtual booth
• Resumes of interested applicants
• Mock career fair to test equipment and booth

To learn more about the virtual career fair visit www.kansasteachingjobs.com and click on Virtual Career Fair in the KEEB Main Menu. To register, send your contact information to support@kansasteachingjobs.com.

Edweek Live Chat on Recruitment

On Tuesday, January 8th Edweek will be hosting an online live chat on "Recruiting and Retaining a New Generation of Teachers". Some of you may be interested in participating or learning more. Below is information on the time and web address. We will be posting a synopsis of the chat later in the week.

Live Chat:
Recruiting and Retaining a New Generation of Teachers

WHEN: Tuesday, January 8, 3 to 4 p.m., Eastern time

WHERE: edweek-chat.org

Submit questions at edweek-chat.org.

With record numbers of teachers expected to retire in the next decade, and teacher-quality demands growing, districts across the nation are facing urgent questions about how to attract and support a new generation of educators.

The 22,000-student Vancouver School District in Vancouver, Washington, believes it has made significant progress in answering some of these questions. The district recently completed a systemic reorganization of its human resources program that emphasizes core values and career growth, and integrates new strategies in workforce planning, recruitment, compensation, mentoring and induction, professional development, and evaluation.

As a result of these changes, the district has replaced 70 percent of its full-time teachers and has a cumulative retention rate of 91 percent. It reports that it now attracts nearly 4,000 candidate contacts for every 200 job openings, and is able to select the top five percent of its candidate pool.

The Vancouver district has received awards in recognition of its recruitment and support practices from the National School Public Relations Association, the American Association of Employment in Education, and the American Association of School Personnel Administrators.

In this chat, two administrators from the Vancouver district will be online to take your questions on their recruitment and retention practices and on current trends in education staffing.

Please join us for the discussion.

About the Guests:

Lee Goeke is an Associate Superintendent of Human Resources Management in the Vancouver School District and currently serves as Legislative Chair for the Washington School Personnel Association. Prior to joining the Vancouver district, he was a human resources executive with the U.S. Defense Department, responsible for 100,000 employees in Europe.

Ed Wilgus is the Professional Development Manager for the Vancouver School District, responsible for training and mentoring. A former nationally certified counselor, he has worked as a public school counselor at the primary and secondary levels.

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No special equipment other than Internet access is needed to participate in this text-based chat. A transcript will be posted shortly after the completion of the chat.

Screenshot Tips and Tricks on KEEB

Navigating the Employer Account, originally uploaded by Teaching in Kansas.

We continue to work on phase II features for the Kansas Education Employment Board. Many of these features are behind the scenes work to increase traffic to the website, such as the partnership with hirekansastalent.com. In conjunction with the behind the scenes work we continuing to work at making the website as user friendly as possible. In an effort to help new users we are adding screenshots with tips to the Help Page. Above is just an example of what users will be able to access as they become familiar with the tools and features of the website. This new resource is intended to ensure that districts are utilizing each feature to the best of their ability in their retention efforts.