Monday, March 9, 2009

Arizona adventure

As some of you know, I drove to Tucson, Arizona to attend a job fair and interview with a school district. This job fair was different from any I have ever attended. I thought that I would be tables with representatives from different schools answering questions and handing out applications. This job fair was strictly for this particular school district, there was a representative from Arizona's TSPC, and there were teachers from the schools within the district visiting with the applicants that were there to interview. The average value of houses in this district is around $500K, the school gets invited to national academic competitions very regularly, 92% of their graduates go on to college, and many of their graduates attend Ivy league schools such as Yale and Harvard. I was very impressed by the professional conduct in which this job fair was conducted and got the impression that this school had very high standards.

As far as a strategy I have taken away from this experience, put in lots of applications and be very fortunate if you recieve a job offer from any school district. Even though this school district is wealthy, it is holding off on signing job offers and will not commit to hiring anyone until after April due to budget cuts. So the sketchy job outlook is not limited to Oregon, but probably all states.

3 comments:

  1. Wow! Sounds like an impressive academic environment. I still think teaching is one of the better fields to be in. The number of students needing to be taught is certainly not declining! I think most districts are trying to have the teachers who are eligible to retire to do so in order for newer and less expensive teachers to take their places. Hermiston just offered the first 15 teacher who turned in their retirement requests a $10,000 bonus. Re-hiring for those 15 positions at lower pay rates is equivilent to 7 of those retirees. It fiscally helped the school district and it means that there are more job openings in Hermiston this next year than there probably would have been if it wasn't for the retirement options. It benefits us as teachers looking for employment and expecting to start out lower on the pay scale.

    I wish you well with your endeavors in AZ. What a wonderful place to live.

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