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.

Recruiting Teachers to Rural Kansas

Dr. Simmons, a professor at a rural university in Virginia, published an article in 2005 summarizing solutions found in literature related to recruiting teachers to rural areas. These solutions hold much promise for administrators in rural areas of Kansas as they begin to recruit for the 2008-2009 school year. Below are the main points that Dr. Simmons discusses in her article Recruiting Teachers for Rural Schools.

“Show rural like as it actually is”

• Safe school buildings
• Close knit communities
• Low cost of living

“Make the personal connection”

• Use a team approach to share information about the community and district with interviewees
• Provide testimonials from teachers, board members, and parents

“Make housing information available”

• Have a list of available houses for rent and sale
• Provide a list of Realtors with names, addresses, and phone numbers
• Have a Realtor available if the interviewee would like to look at potential properties

“Put salaries in perspective”

• Explain monetary benefits of living in a rural area
• Provide a cost analysis of food, housing, utilities, and insurance rates

Reference: Simmons, M.J. (2005) Recruiting Teachers for Rural Schools. Principal Leadership. (5)5, 48 - 52.

Interviewing Candidates with Video

Many districts are now interviewing potential candidates who live in various locations across the state of Kansas or in another state. Today’s technology provides a number of options for interviewing these candidates from another location. Voice over Internet Protocol, or often referred to as VoIP, allows you to make free phone calls over the internet. New tools in VoIP make it even easier to make video calls, which allow the callers to see each other and make the distance interview more personal. Here are two common programs you can use to conduct video conferencing interviews that are free.

• Skype – Free video conferencing calls to anyone with a Skype account. Your district could set up an administrative account and an interviewee account. Then candidates would just need to download the Skype software to connect to you. The screenshot to the right is an example from Skype of what a voice call would look like within their software. http://www.skype.com
• Yugma – Free teleconferencing capabilities that also have features similar to webinars if you wanted to offer an online information session about your district. Yugma just requires you to sign up for a free account. https://www.yugma.com/

Each of these programs will require a camera to conduct video interviews. A decent webcam can range in price from $50 to $100. Many of today’s new computers come with built in webcams, so your applicants may already have access to this technology. If you are interested in conducting video interviews or learning more contact me at kylie.stewart@greenbush.org.

Assessing Your Effort to Attract Quality Candidates

KEEB has now been in place for 7 weeks and there are approximately 1300 applicants in the system as of press time. A number of the applicants are in the system to learn how to use it or are considering applying for positions, but many are actively applying for positions. There a number of steps you can take to attract quality candidates from this pool to your posting. The former KEEB system inundated you with resumes, while the new system requires a little more work up front to receive resumes. The new features are intended to provide 10 really good applicants rather than 100 resumes to sift through for 10 candidates. There are a number of ways you can increase the rate of quality applicants.

• Branding – It is important to brand your district so that candidates with similar philosophies apply. This can help you find a good fit with a candidate. You can include branding by utilizing the employer description, images, and podcasts.
• Review Your Posting – Look at your posting from a job seekers perspective, rather than the employer side. When you read your posting do you get a feeling for where your located, what your districts beliefs are, what the job is, and the kinds of benefits that are available?
• Keyword Rich – Visitors to KEEB from popular search engines like Google, MSN, and Yahoo are increasing every day. You can take advantage of these search engines by utilizing keywords in your postings. For example, let’s say I have a PT position to post. I would be better off listing it as Physical Therapist and including those two words in my posting several times, not just in the title. For example, when I search Google for Interrelated Special Education Job, the first search result is a link to a posting on KEEB. The district that posted this position included the title of the position in the job description as well.

If you aren’t getting the applicants the number of applicants you might consider looking at these three areas. Remember also, that KEEB provides you with data so that you can learn more about how many job seekers are viewing your postings. This can be helpful information when analyzing your recruitment effort.

Linking Your District to KEEB

Silver Lake School District is the first to link directly to KEEB on their district website with the new KEEB logo. Checkout how they include the logo on their homepage to direct potential candidates to KEEB. Candidates can click on the link to view open positions and submit an application. If you would like to add the KEEB logo to your district or HR website email me at kylie.stewart@greenbush.org.

Highlighting Educators in Your District

Beyond this blog for employers, KEEB now publishes a blog for job seekers that shares tips and tricks for those individuals interested in an education career in the state. One section of the blog shares the stories of educators across the state. This provides job seekers with a personal story or experience that they can possibly relate to. We have posted the first story from a wonderful 2nd year educator from Garden City High School, Shanna Riecker. Shanna shares the experience of her first year of teaching and talks about the benefits of teaching in Kansas. This not only provides someone interested in teaching in Kansas information about what the first year may be like, but provides districts, such as Garden City, another way to direct applicants to their district. Here is just an excerpt of Shanna's story:

Shanna Riecker
Math Teacher
Garden City High School

Why did you become a teacher?
Growing up, I always wanted to be a teacher. I conducted “classes” for all of the neighborhood kids from a very early age. Until my senior year of high school, I was sure that I wanted to be a first grade teacher – I wanted to be just like Mrs. P. was when I was in first grade. My high school offered an Exploring Teaching class where seniors were allowed to go to an elementary school and be a teacher’s aide for a class, and of course, I chose to go into a first grade classroom. It didn’t take me long to figure out that wasn’t the right place for me. In a discussion with my counselor, she mentioned that I should consider secondary education, and I took her advice. I majored in mathematics secondary education because math was something that was usually easy for me, and I enjoyed the endless possibilities with teaching math. I enjoyed the time that I got to spend in middle school and high school classrooms throughout my coursework, and I knew that this was what I was meant to do. After college graduation, I took a job teaching high school math in Garden City, Kansas. It wasn’t where I figured I would end up teaching, but the experience thus far has been wonderful.

What was your first year of teaching like?
Garden City High School was an amazing place to start my teaching career. The math department had all of the qualities that I was looking for – the teachers were positive, they collaborated, they were willing to try new methods of teaching, they utilized technology whenever possible, and they welcomed me into their “family” with open arms. Any time I had a question (or still have a question), there were 16 other teachers ready to...

To read the rest of Shanna's story visit the Job Seekers Blog. If you have an educator, related service provider, or administrator in your district who you would like to highlight on KEEB email me their contact information and we will send them information on how to participate.

Update on Marketing Your District or Agency

As I traveled the state this week conducting trainings on the new Kansas Education Employment Board (KEEB) I heard many districts and agencies talk about how they are using new KEEB features to market their district. The new features allow employers to include descriptions, images, and video and are now being used to reach job seekers like never before. You will notice that many districts are utilizing images of their district logo or buildings in their employer profile. There are also a few districts taking advantage of the video feature to either upload a recruitment video or embed a video already on their district homepage. In addition, many districts are now identifying their location to other cities and towns in their profiles. Therefore, if a job seeker does a search for a particular town that they are located near, they appear in the search results as an employer in the area. If you would like assistance with any of these features or would like us to take a look at your profile and offer suggestions for how to market your district and community don't hesitate to contact us.

Selling the Benefits of Small Town Kansas

Many of the school districts in our state sit in small rural communities. These communities offer multiple benefits to teachers that need to be shared with potential candidates. In July, CNN highlighted small towns across the country in their article "Big Employers, Small-town Jobs". One question the author raised regarding the benefits of small towns was:

But what about the advantages of small-town life, like cheap housing, low crime rates, and clean air?

The new KEEB allows districts to provide this type of information about their community in the employer description. This information then becomes part of each and ever job posting. To locate information on your community visit the link below. This site provides data, such as, number of libraries, parks, housing costs, etc. for cities in Kansas that may be worth including in your employer description on KEEB.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2007/states/KS.html

We are currently developing a video highlighting the benefits of teaching in rural Kansas that will be posted on the KEEB website. I will keep you updated as we wrap up production.

Recruiting is Marketing Your District or Organization

The new KEEB offers user friendly tools to market your district like never before. Below are three ways to increase applicants’ knowledge of your district and market unique aspects of your district. Applicants can view this content when they view any of your job announcements or your employer profile. If you already have an employer account in KEEB, login and click on Edit Profile on the “My Menu” page to utilize any of these features. If you don’t have an account yet, sign up for your free employer account at www.kansasteachingjobs.com and start marketing your district or organization today.

• Employer Description: Share your district vision and values, as well as, describe where you are located. Include any information that sets you apart from other districts, such as, a focus on technology or small class sizes. This is your opportunity to sell your district and community.
• Image: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Digital images allow applicants to make a connection with what you include in the employer description. The image may be of a building in your district, teachers or students, or a logo.
• Podcast: Podcasts are a marketing tool to reach the video and ipod generation. In the new KEEB you can upload a brief 3 minute video highlighting your district or organization. Reach applicants by sharing what is it like to work there, highlight a teacher or administrator’s story, show a brief tour of the facilities, or discuss the kinds of benefits offered or professional development opportunities. At the end the podcast be sure to include the district website and contact information.

If your district doesn’t have the technical expertise in house to develop some of this material look to a group of high school students such as class officers, journalism class, or other group of students who could assist you in developing the digital content. You might be amazed what students can do with a digital camera and a computer to highlight your district. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about how to get started or need assistance in developing the material.

Web 2.0 and Recruiting

Listen to Jobster CEO Jason Goldberg talk about web 2.0 and its effect on business models. The following web 2.0 tools are being considered as an addition to KEEB to increase recruitment efforts in Kansas

Facebook
My Space
Youtube
TeacherTube