Principals say an all-day job interview event for Rockford School District teacher candidates will streamline the hiring process and should benefit job candidates.
Nine hours are set aside at Guilford High School Saturday for principals to interview candidates for about 300 open teacher positions for the fall. Principals are firming up their list of interviewees this week. School secretaries are also fielding calls from candidates and balancing schedules.
Changing roles
The district’s human resources staff, unlike previous years, is playing a less significant role in the process. Principals — not central office staff — will largely be responsible for narrowing the field of candidates and choosing whom to interview.
Applicants can interview for multiple positions Saturday, provided they’ve been selected by principals for an interview. That could allow applicants to set up their day so they’re finished in the morning or just have an afternoon of interviews.
“If I was being interviewed, I would like it that way,” said Theresa Harvey, principal at Lewis Lemon Elementary School.
In previous years, if a teacher wanted to interview for jobs at East and Jefferson high schools and Flinn and Kennedy middle schools, for example, that teacher would have to drive to each site and interview at different times and dates. Principals would interview candidates over a few weeks.
Harvey plans to interview candidates for about six openings and, like other principals, may need time beyond Saturday to conduct further interviews.
‘One-stop shopping’
Regardless, incoming East High School Principal Todd France agrees with Harvey that the process this year will be better for applicants.
“This is one-stop shopping,” France said. “Time management-wise, for the teachers, it’s going to be easier.”
France, who is now principal at Flinn, will work double duty, interviewing teachers to work at East and keeping an eye on candidates vying for jobs at Flinn.
Applicants are looking for teacher jobs anywhere they can as Illinois struggles to make aid payments to school districts. France said he’s noticing applicants are hailing from Beloit, Wis., the Harlem School District, South Beloit, Sterling, Naperville and even St. Charles.
Some not qualified
France has about 20 open positions at East, and one has already attracted 39 applicants. It’s unlikely, though, that all of them will be interviewed, he said, because some aren’t qualified.
France and other principals are weeding out unqualified applicants through a prescreening process with the Illinois State Board of Education.
Five assistant principals will help France conduct the East interviews. So far, he said, at least 35 to 40 candidates are planning to interview Saturday for the nearly 20 open positions.
About 30 people are scheduled to interview for up to 14 jobs at Flinn.
“It’s a busy day,” he said. “But the volume that I am seeing at Flinn is basically the same” as last year.
Two categories of tenured teachers will receive priority placement this fall, though they must still go through the interview process: surplus teachers — those who were dismissed from their position and guaranteed a job in the fall — and those who elect to transfer to another job within the district.
No priority will be given to nontenured teachers who were let go from the district last month.
“Everybody is considered ‘new,’ ” France said.
Staff writer Cathy Bayer can be reached at [email protected] or 815-987-1395.
Read the original article from the Rockford Register Star.
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services
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