Teaching Alternative Certification and Teaching away from home

 

TEACHER HIRING PRACTICES
IN TEXAS
FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

Just like a lot of people, I have been looking for a stable, full-time job for quite some time. Two months after earning an MFA in Creative writing (and seven months of applying to work at universities and colleges, knowing I would be graduating soon) and not being offered a job, I decided to go through an online Alternative Certification programme.

I tested, and passed, state exams to teach all the core curriculum for Early Childhood through grade Six (EC-6) in the state of Texas. That was two years ago. Over the summer, I tested to teach Art EC through grade 12, and passed. I have been applying all over the state and in this rather large slip of land called the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas … still, nothing.

I made it all the way to the interview portion for a few schools, but did not get hired. One principal was close to hiring me for an Art Teacher position in her elementary school. Turns out, she was concerned that, since I didn’t have a place to live lined up and that I would have trouble getting to work on time. The position went to someone else. Guess what? After the school year started, the position was posted, again. Yeah, I raised an eyebrow at that, too. But it was not the only position that I did not get, that was reposted. I have seen a lot of that in local schools.

Here is something else I noticed about local schools ~ ones with sports programmes. Through the Texas Education Agency’s website, anyone can look into requests schools made for exemptions to just about any law they need to break. Yes. That’s right. There are laws that require small student to teacher ratios. To get by that, the school claims economic hardship and is able to squeeze more students into already full classrooms.

So, it is strange to see some of these same schools saying they are poor, when they are spending loads of money on every aspect of sports programmes ~ both boys and girls, but mostly football.

That is definitely something to look into, in the future. But since my focus is on elementary schools, sports does not factor into the equation, unless the districts are taking funds from everywhere to put into sports.

Anyway, my first question is about reposting positions that have already been filled. Was the person they hired so bad that they were fired or quit?

Well, as it turns out, reposting a position so soon into a school year is something strange, but not illegal. I reached out to one of the local school district, via e-mail and phone calls, for information. In an e-mail response from Norma A. Castillo, Organizational Development Department/Director for Talent Acquisition and Development for Harlingen CISD in Harlingen, Texas, she explained that “[m]any job openings appear open for the school year even if we do not currently have a vacancy. We interview pools of applicants. What that means is that we post positions and interview applicants throughout the year in order to proactively meet hiring needs when a vacancy does occur.”

But that does not really happen the way she explains…at least from my experience. During one of my observations, I happened to be in the fourth grade section of a school. The teacher across the hall was a permanent substitute. So, here is another question. If interviews were conducted in a prior school year, and people were cleared and put into a pool, why is there a permanent substitute teacher instead of a fully-certified teacher? The possible answer is that teacher candidates are looking for work. We jump at the first, best offer. We won’t be waiting around for something to come up. And if that awesome job becomes available, teachers cannot just quit their job. By law, if a teacher does not fulfil the contract, they will lose their teaching license.

So, all this new information begs the questions: Why not hire available teachers when needed, instead of using substitutes? Why create a pool if the chances are great that the most desirable candidate will have already been snatched up by another district? Why not give NEW teachers a chance?

I wanted to ask these and other questions of the people responsible for hiring teachers, but, besides the initial e-mail response, no one got back to me with the requested information…for three weeks. Every time I called, in those three weeks, Nora Garcia (Secretary) told me the message and my information would be passed on. Being that I never received another call or e-mail since my initial contact, it is safe to say no one wanted to talk to me or the information was “lost”. It is also possible that something far more or far less dramatic happened to my information. Whatever the case may be, it is known only to those involved.

I believe it is more likely that no one at the school district is taking me seriously because I am just a freelance journalist. I do take offense. Any reporter would. But what this offense did was spur me on.

My search for answers will continue. I will do my best to look into other sketchy school practices along this same vein and keep you posted.