Legal Policies
Week 4 - Instructor Guidance
EDU688: ORGANIZATIONAL MANAGEMENT FOR STUDENT LEARNING
Introduction
It is clear… that teachers are attracted to, and most likely to remain in, schools in which the environment is conducive to teaching and learning, where safety and order are priorities, where they have influence over decisions that affect their school and its programs, where they feel supported by those in charge and where they have opportunities to develop professionally. Teacher recruitment-and-retention efforts must support these conditions for all schools, with particular attention paid to schools with staffing challenges (Meeting the challenge, 2007, p. 4).
The above quote comes from the article, Meeting the challenge: Recruiting and Retaining Teachers in Hard-to-Staff Schools. This article gives you the “big picture” concerning recruiting, hiring, and training new teachers and staff. Once the principal knows what type of employee he or she wants to hire, the next major step is to develop the interview process. The small nuances of how you and your school are perceived in the interview process can make the difference in attracting high-quality teachers.
Week 4 Discussion Guidance
In the Recruiting and Hiring of New Staff discussion we explore the impact a principal’s values and beliefs have on the search for and hiring of new school staff. One objective of the school hiring new teachers and staff is so that the school can implement school change and improvement. Recruiting and hiring new staff tends to be a continual process because new hires can be difficult to keep. Furthermore, when schools need to make changes due to safety and school climate issues, it is pertinent that new hires are assets for helping make these changes possible. As a result, recruiting and hiring of new staff requires establishing values defining your approach for conducting the search, and planning and carrying out interviews. The article, The Designed Implementation of a Highly Effective Teacher Recruitment System, can help you evaluate the recruitment and hiring system you will establish in your role as principal. As you read this article, consider the factors that make the recruitment process effective.
In the second discussion, Training New Staff, a process to support, guide, and train new staff is reviewed. Besides being a school change issue, recruiting and retaining new teachers is a budget issue due to the increasing cost of replacing teachers dissatisfied with teaching. Thus, it is important that the school district have an effective training and support program to initiate and support new hires. Take a look at the New Teacher Induction Program PowerPoint Presentation from the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board for an overview of their new teacher induction process. As you view the PowerPoint presentation, ask yourself the following questions: What is teacher induction? Why do we need teacher induction? What are the best strategies to use to ensure a successful induction program?
Week 4 Assignment Guidance
In the Legal Policies assignment, you investigate the use of school background checks and legal rights to determine what typically prevents a candidate from being hired for a school district job and what the rights of the new employee are. One of the most important steps in finalizing the hiring of new school staff is the background check. In Search of a Job: Criminal Records as Barrier to Employment is an article that can support you as you prepare this assignment.
While it is very difficult for someone who has had a criminal record to be hired for a school position, it is still valuable for you to know how the criminal background check operates. This formal written assignment provides the opportunity to review enumerated rights, background checks, and legal rights in anticipation of including these legal policies as part of the Campus Budget Plan Proposal.
If you have any questions about the activities from this week, be sure to ask questions in our Ask Your Instructor discussion!
Recommendation
Save your work in personal and cloud based storage for extra assurance you can access it later for portfolio construction or use in another course in the program or beyond, such as for publishing opportunities in the future! As with all coursework in our class, this item may be one you select to incorporate into your learning in another course including EDU 689 and the Capstone course, EDU 695.Therefore, it is strongly encouraged you save your coursework on a flash-drive (e.g., a USB removable drive) or store in a cloud based option such as Dropbox, GoogleDrive, or something similar as you may not be able to retrieve them in e-college.
References
American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO. (2007). Meeting the challenge: Recruiting and retaining teachers in hard-to-staff schools. Retrieved from http://www.aft.org/pdfs/teachers/hardtostaff0607.pdf
Ertman, P. A., Strobel, J., Cheng, X., Chen, X., Kim, H., Olesova, L., Sadaf, A., & Tomory, A. (2010). Expressions of critical thinking in role playing simulations: Comparisons across roles. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 22(2), 73-94.
Newschools Venture Fund. (2007). The designed implementation of a highly effective teacher recruitment system. Retrieved from http://tntp.org/assets/tools/AF%20NSVF+TeacherRecruitingCaseStudy%20TSLT_0311.pdf
Powershow.com. (n.d.). New teacher induction program presentation [Presentation slides]. Retrieved from http://www.powershow.com/view/be705-OTljZ/New_Teacher_Induction_Program_powerpoint_ppt_presentation
Solomon, A. L. (2012). In search of a job: Criminal records as barriers to employment. NIJ Journal, 270. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/238488.pdf
Tooms, A., & Crowe, A. (n. d.). Hiring good teachers: The interview process. Retrieved from http://www.naesp.org/resources/2/Principal/2004/N-Dp50.pdf
