Job fair 2009: Mission Accomplished

Goose Creek CISD is well on the way to achieving its goal of hiring an anticipated 170 teachers, nurses and librarians, says Goose Creek Director of Personnel, Susan Moore-Fontenot.

In order to develop an applicant database of candidates, each spring the district recruits at approximately 15 university-based job fairs. At the university-based job fairs, candidates are encouraged to apply to work in Goose Creek CISD and attend the district’s signature teacher job fair.

April 4 was the district’s fourth annual district teacher job fair. Approximately 500 teachers, nurses, and librarians in the district’s application database were invited to attend and vie for the 80 vacant positions open at that time. The attendance for the day included approximately 400 applicants, most of whom were from Texas, Fontenot said.

Each candidate was screened, and many were subsequently interviewed for potential vacancies. On Job Fair Day, 32 letters of intent to hire were offered subject to verification of reference checks and certification compliance to meet the No Child Left Behind “highly qualified” requirements. From that pool of job fair attendees, an additional 10 candidates have been hired. About 25 percent of the hiring for 2009-2010 has been completed as a result of the district’s job fair. Currently, there are approximately 40 vacant teaching positions in grades K-12; however, teachers may elect to resign as late as the first week in July.

A mixture of first year and experienced teachers, both within the geographic area and within the state, were hired for 2009-2010. The most unique hire was a teacher trained at Instanbul University in Turkey but is currently living in Kingwood and working at Lone Star College as an ESOL teacher. As a linguist, she holds a master’s degree in teaching English as a Foreign Language and comes with high recommendations. She was employed to work as an English as a Second Language (ESL) English Language Arts teacher at Cedar Bayou Junior School. She has nine years experience teaching English as a foreign language.

The district was one of the first districts in the area to conduct a teacher job fair. “As the No. 1 employer in the Baytown and Highlands communities, we are pleased to offer opportunities for candidates to obtain information about the district’s outstanding educational programs and our communities,” Fontenot said. “Almost every department – personnel, instructional, maintenance, food service, transportation, public relations, etc. - worked together to plan for this annual event.”
Together, the district put forth its best efforts to recruit the best candidates for the “best” students, Fontenot said.