The Teaching Chronicles
With the close of the fall 2006 semester, Zacharia Eastman fulfilled his student-teaching requirements and obtained his teaching license from the state of Vermont. As a result, the “Teaching Chronicles,” a regular feature to Work Sighted, will now focus on his efforts to secure a full-time teaching position in a secondary school, preferably in a Vermont classroom.
A classroom of one’s own: working connections
Once I finished student teaching, I thought it would be easy to find a job. Although I eventually want my own classroom, after Thanksgiving I began work as a substitute para-educator, working one-on-one with a student with special needs. I thought the position would be a great “resumé builder” and hoped that it would eventually lead to full-time para-educator work, however, it never developed into anything more that a substitute job.
Despite the setback with a full-time position, I got my foot in the school district’s door and have been substitute teaching in the area, earning twenty more dollars a day than I would have as a substitute para-educator. Getting into schools, whether it is for an actual job or substituting, is one of the hardest feats. Before finishing my degree, I heard that finding a job would depend on “who I knew.” As a self-assured graduate, I didn’t really believe such hearsay. However, I got the para-educator position because of who I knew. I am also one of the first names to call on the district’s high school substitute list for the same reason.
In conversation with others who have also recently completed student teaching, most have had similar experiences to my own when trying to find work. One person became a full-time para-educator directly after finishing student teaching at the same school. Another, after student teaching in Burlington, moved back to the central Vermont. She put her name on the substitute teaching list for the district near her home, but got no responses. She broadened her availability to schools throughout the county and a few in a nearby county, but only after several months did she begin to get steady offers.
Typically, I use a website called SchoolSpring to search for job postings <www.schoolspring.com>. All Vermont public education jobs are supposed to be posted on this site, and it’s free for all users. What makes it even better is, unlike other sites, SchoolSpring does not require the user to set up an account, and employers from each state and some international employers also post jobs on it too. While the school districts in some states use other sites, many states, like Vermont, heavily encourage the use of SchoolSpring.
Anyone looking for a teaching job should begin with SchoolSpring to see if the state uses that site. If it doesn’t, look at the state’s Department of Education website for guidance. Some that I’ve found useful include AlaskaTeacher for jobs in Alaska <www.alaskateacher.org/jobs/ >. Although EdJoin serves various states, it is favored by Pennsylvania <www.edjoin.org>. I have not found a specific site for California yet, but the California Department of Education provides a directory of school districts to search <www.cde.ca.gov/re/sd/>. California also lists a large number of posting on SchoolSpring. For teacher placement in the United Kingdom and Australia, I’ve looked at BlueWaveInternational <www.bluewaveinternational.com>.
Reading job postings on some of these sites has been interesting, educational, depressing, and eye-opening. It has been interesting to see the types and breadth of English teaching jobs that are offered. I have gained a greater understanding of the kinds of jobs that are most often available as well as what I want or don’t want to teach. The depressing and eye-opening parts seem to go hand-in-hand. Since the end of November, there have been only a few high school English teaching positions that have opened in Vermont—definitely depressing. The eye-opening part is that some of these jobs are posted for less than a week.
Apparently it does help to know someone at the school. Many new teachers get teaching jobs immediately by knowing someone at the school where there is an opening. Some are also willing to move to other parts of the country where there is a high demand for teachers. Ideally, I would like to stay in Vermont, but if prospects for the next academic year don’t look good, I will look across the country. I have considered Alaska, California, Florida, Hawaii, and the UK as well as places like Pennsylvania or Connecticut which have good reputations for retirement benefits and good salaries. Another possibility is states that identify themselves as “at need” for English teachers. Working in one of these schools would defer paying back my student loans and, after a certain number of years, would enable a large percentage of my school loans to be forgiven.
Recently, my hopes for work in Vermont grew when my mentoring teachers told me about two possible job openings for next year. They have connections to the organization and the school. So with fingers crossed, I’ll be teaching here next year.
Zacharia Eastman, while an NU undergraduate, was a member of Sigma Tau Delta. Upon graduation, he was the recipient of the Hart Award, given annually to a senior English major who has contributed the most to the department.
