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Obtaining Personnel

Megan German

PEDU 628

Longwood University
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The single most important decision you make for students is to hire a teacher (Smith,

2013). While some believe that education is driven by curriculum, effective learning can only

truly happen when you have effective teachers. As a result, local schools should take their time

in creating and implementing sound recruitment, interview, and selection practices to ensure that

they get the best teachers and administrators to fill vacancies. After discussing these practices

and methods for my school system, I definitely feel that they have solid practices; however, there

are a few adjustments that I would make to improve their methods.

Chesapeake Public Schools recruiting methods vary between teachers and

administrators. For teachers, they attend college recruitment fairs, in which they hold on-site

interviews. This year, for the first time, they held their own job fair, not only for teachers, but

also for bus drivers, cafeteria workers, custodial staff, and other positions within the school

system. One final method of recruiting teachers is through online job sites, such as Indeed.

When it comes to administration, while they do have a leadership academy to prepare

teachers who currently have their administrative endorsement, they dont actually recruit for

administration. In fact, I was surprised to learn that most of the administrative staff is recruited

from within, with only a handful of current administrators having come from other school

districts. This is one of the major areas that I would like to change.

While I can appreciate their efforts to recruit teachers, there are a few other steps that I

think would ensure that they hire the best teacher or administrator for the job. First, I would

suggest doing exit interviews with teachers, to get a better understanding of the school systems

strengths and weaknesses, so that they can address those areas of weakness, but also be sure to

recruit candidates that would thrive in the current conditions of a specific school or city.

Another area of concern that was discussed was the need for a more user-friendly online
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application. The current site that is being used is rather difficult to maneuver through, which

could cause the city to miss out on valuable candidates, due to technology issues. In regards to

administrative recruitment, while I can understand wanting to recruit from within and mold your

own administrators, I truly feel that when we limit ourselves to just the candidates within our

school system, we are missing out on the opportunity to diversify and gain administrators that

have different experiences and could bring some fresh perspectives and ideas to our district. I

would really like to see more effort put into recruiting some external candidates for

administrative positions.

Next, we discussed the interview and selection processes for teachers and administrators.

For teachers, they first go through a screening interview with a Human Resources administrator,

based on the grade level in which they seek employment. At these interviews, there is a set list

of questions that are asked. Once the candidates pass the screening test, the candidate list is sent

to principals to interview and select a candidate. School-based interviews can consist of just the

principal, or the principal, other administration, and, sometimes, even the department head. The

site-based interview questions are created by the administrator, so there is not a uniform list of

questions asked. Once the principal chooses a candidate, they inform HR, which then makes a

formal offer of employment.

For administrators, there is also an entry-level screening interview which consists of one

human resources administrator and two school-based administrators. Unlike the teacher

interviews, there is a specific list of questions that all candidates are supposed to answer;

however, this list changes annually, so that candidates that reapply do not get the same questions.

Once they pass the screening portion, candidates are interviewed by the superintendents staff, as

well as having to complete a written portion. The two parts of the interview are combined for a
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total score. These scores determine who is selected for administrative positions and, typically,

for assistant principal positions, a list of 2-5 possible candidates is sent to the building

administrator to choose who gets the position. I did think that it was a great idea to allow the

building administrator to have some say in the selected AP, since they would have to work

closely together.

One of the major concerns that I had about the interview and selection process for both

teachers and administrators was that it isnt always the same people interviewing all of the

candidates. For example, there could be 5 possible candidates for a teaching position, and one

day it could be just the building principal interviewing, and another it could be two assistant

principals interviewing. The same issue occurs with administrative interviews, as the only

requirement is that 2 building administrators and 1 HR administrator are present, so all of the

candidates could potentially be interviewed by different committees, which leaves

inconsistencies in scoring them for placement. I would like to see a set committee, at least for

each level, that interviews all of the candidates, so that the selection process is fairer and more

controlled.

Overall, I would say that Chesapeake has really solid practices for recruiting,

interviewing, and hiring, but there are still minor issues that should be resolved to make the

hiring process fairer to all candidates applying, and to ensure that we get the best teachers and

administrators, not just from our area, but in general. With these few changes that Ive

suggested, I really think we would make solid improvements in our students educational

experiences.
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References

Bailey, Mike. (2017, June, 21). Personal interview.

Smith, R. (2013). Human resource administration: A school-based perspective (4th ed.). New

York, NY: Routledge.