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Superintendent's Community Advisory Council

 

SCAC Minutes
March 15, 2005

Lynn Terhar opened the meeting and called on Superintendent Jack Dale for the Superintendent's updates.

Dale described a concept he has discussed with the School Board for recognizing the responsibilities that some teachers undertake in addition to their normal duties. One way to go would be an 11-month contract, which would give teachers more time to perform these responsibilities within their contracts. He said that these days teachers have many more demands on them than can be accommodated in ten months. Typically, we have paid them for these extra duties piecemeal on an hourly basis. A longer contract would professionalize these duties by making them part of the salaried year.

One way to start would be to codify existing additional duties by categories, such as school improvement, time with students outside school hours, experienced teachers working with younger teachers, etc. An 11-month contract could then be offered to teachers who take on these responsibilities. This would also improve salary competitiveness because teachers would receive pay for the extra month, making teacher salaries closer to salaries for other professions that require the same level of preparation.

Using some of the money provided through a $5 million grant from the Wallace Readers' Digest Foundation, Dale will be bringing together a number of people from FCPS plus people from other places with Alan Odden of the University of Wisconsin in a "think tank" in Chicago to discuss how to structure such a system. He hopes that, by fall 2006, several FCPS sites will be pilot-testing such an approach.

Dale said that he is recommending adding funds to the FY 2006 advertised budget to fund an increase in the base teacher salary to $40,000 in order to remain competitive. This would mean a deficit of $15.7 million would need to be made up with savings during the fiscal year. He said that FCPS could live with the county transfer amount proposed by Anthony Griffin county executive, but that if the Board of Supervisors (BOS) reduces that amount FCPS would be in dire straits.

Eileen Kugler asked if Dale thought the BOS might be open to funding an 11-month teacher contract in FY 2007, as Dale had proposed. Dale said BOS members have shown some support.

Terhar introduced Kevin North to discuss teacher recruiting and retention. With North were Pamela McKnight, coordinator of recruitment, and three teachers: Kimberly Reed, Bernadette Garfinkel and Carla Perea.

North said that selling what you have is the key to recruiting and that proximity to Washington , D.C. is attractive to potential candidates for teaching positions. He also passed out candy bars wrapped in paper with information about FCPS; these are used at recruiting events, and they get people's attention. He said the three steps of recruiting are: getting individuals’ attention, sparking their imaginations, and capturing their hearts.

North said that recruiting teachers requires a partnership between the Human Relations Department and schools; principals give a lot of their time to make this work.

FCPS hired 1,638 teachers this year. His goal is that all full-time positions are filled by the first day of school. We expect to hire 1,300 teachers for next year. FCPS offers early hiring to superb candidates in critical fields that we do not want to lose. We hire some in September to start the following September. We then figure out later where to place them within FCPS. For any teacher who declines an early-hire offer, we find out why and ask them to reapply. FCPS uses jobs and advertisements in college newspapers (to get the attention of students who may not be studying education before they see the ad). Quality of life (including the dating scene) is the most important draw. We have partnerships with a number of universities to recruit their students, and teachers are recruited from among student teachers and interns.

North said it is not OK to be second place. People are the reason for FCPS’ excellence.

Kimberley Reed said that she was an early hire. She taught first in Prince William County for two years but kept hearing about FCPS so she applied with us. Among the attractions for her was great FCPS staff development. However, she is paying a large amount in rent to live here.

Carla Perea said she has been a teacher for 25 years but is in her first year in FCPS. She said she feels renewed.

Bernadette Garfinkel said she has taught in FCPS 31 years. She has a very good principal who supports developmentally appropriate instruction. Having a good principal is critical to her job satisfaction. She also noted that things in her building get fixed quickly.

Brenda Green said that prospective teachers in areas where there is not a high need spend a great deal of time in the summer trying to get positions and then find that positions disappear. She said some people recommend that a person who wants to be hired as a teacher work as a substitute teacher for a year, but many who do are not hired. North said the teacher shortage is spotty and that there is a large pool of candidates in most areas. Teachers who are turned down repeatedly for positions are probably not going to be FCPS teachers. Greene said such teachers ought to be counseled that they will probably not be hired.

Jan Averbach asked if there are many prospective teachers who do not want to teach in very large elementary schools. McKnight said that this is not the case, and that support available for teachers, rather than size of school, is important. Averbach asked if crummy facilities were a turn-off. McKnight said no, not if there is good leadership.

Marilyn Mitchell asked about hiring noncredentialed candidates for critical fields. North said FCPS has several lawyers and a former judge teaching social studies, a nuclear submarine specialist teaching physics, and other similar examples of nontraditional candidates who have become teachers. Sometimes this works, and other times it does not.

Mitchell asked about high school programs to "grow our own" teachers. McKnight said that many schools have "cadet teacher" clubs, and some have credit-bearing courses in teaching.

Boyce Williams said Arlington Public Schools has a Future Teachers of America club. She also said that she knows of two men who have been displaced by federal government cut-backs who want to teach math.

Rick Baumgartner asked how teachers in schools that now have full-day kindergarten have reacted to the switch from half-day sessions. North said that there have been few if any adjustment problems.

Baumgartner asked what FCPS is doing to retain teachers we have. North said that the leadership in the building is key to retention. We have done focus groups made up of teachers who are leaving and those who stay, and this is what we have found.

Baumgartner asked the reasons why teachers leave. North said there are many reasons. The FCPS turnover rate (10-11 percent) is similar to that of other school systems; it is slightly higher than average, but Fairfax County also has a very high rate of mobility.

Ellen Oppenheim said that teachers must continually track between state (SOL) and FCPS (POS) standards and that these should be aligned

Katie Lynch asked Kimberley Reed why she came to FCPS. Reed said it was because of the way that FCPS presented itself and that she knew that she would be supported as a teacher in an FCPS school.

Lynn Dysart asked if teachers are going to other counties to teach, retiring, or what? North said that about 400 retire each year and a very small number leave to teach in other school systems.

Lynch said FCPS loses some teachers because we cannot offer them a contract soon enough or because they cannot afford to live in Fairfax County .

Laura Floyd noted that none of the IB or AP students at the previous meeting had wanted to be teachers.

North said that there was a spike in applicants for teaching positions after 9/11, apparently because many people who had long wanted to teach realized that life is short.

Kugler suggested there could be more efforts by the system to "grow our own" teachers, including a more active HR presence at school career days using minority teachers.

McKnight noted that FCPS recruiters not only talk with education majors in colleges but also meet with clubs and other organizations, bringing pizza to their meetings.

Suzanne noted that many Virginia colleges do not offer undergraduate education degrees and require a fifth year of study.

The meeting was adjourned.