Good Report About Bringing Community Awareness

Every school district aspires to have the best teachers teaching in its school. This is no different in our school district. This district has consistently performed superbly as compared to other districts mainly because of the high caliber of teachers that are currently in its schools. For this trend to continue, the school must continue attracting the highest caliber of teachers who will propel the school district into even greater academic heights. This year is quite different when compared to other years as the number of planned retirements is quite high. The district will have to replace the retirees with equally qualified teachers.
The school district website is currently the main platform for attracting teachers to the district. Adverts about vacancies in the school district are placed on the website. The website also features other elements that are meant to make the district attractive to prospective teachers. This includes a vivid description of all schools in this district and the features that make this district stand out.
However, from the preliminary assessment of the website, it appears that there are some crucial elements that are lacking and that could be affecting the number as well as the caliber of teachers who are attracted to the school district. There are also areas that could be significantly improved. One of these relates to the description of the schools of the districts. Some of the descriptions of the school appear to be quite vague. In addition, the specific method of recruitment has not been explained explicitly. The website could also give clear description of some of the standards of education that are pursued in the district so as to enable new teachers deduce whether they can ascribe to these standards. Finally, there is also a vague description of the current teaching personnel of the district. This is something that should be looked into since new and prospective teachers will want to view the descriptions of the already existing teachers and draw out the differences and similarities.
In the aim of attracting high caliber of teachers, the website should feature a presentation of various elements in the schools of this school district that makes it stand out. In simple terms, the presentation should feature items that will convince new teachers why the district is the best when it comes to fulfilling their goals and objectives and why they should be immediately start seeking employment in this school district.
The first item that the presentation should feature is an overview of all the staff and faculty and their achievements of every school. As mentioned, most of the schools in the district has consistently managed to attract a high caliber of teachers who are distinguished in their fields of proficiency and who hold various degrees and certificates. These should all be included in the presentation. Highly qualified prospective teachers will want to be associated with a staff that is similarly highly qualified and thus, the exhibition of the degrees and certificates of the already existing faculty will help in attracting such teachers. In addition, the exhibition of degrees and certificates will inform prospective teachers of the minimum academic requirements for teachers in this district.
The other item of key importance and that should be captured by the presentation is each school’s history including the achievement and awards as well as distinguishable alumni. As mentioned earlier, the schools in the district have been performing highly and some have accrued a host of various awards. This is not just in terms of academic awards but also in terms of other awards such as those that are humanitarian in nature as well as the ones in sports. Additionally, many schools have a list of distinguishable alumni who have all passed through them and are now accomplished people in the society. The exhibition of these items or elements will play an enormous role in attracting new teachers to the district as will want to be a key part of this award winning culture and hopefully propel the schools where they are posted to greater height and even produced even more distinguishable students who will become notable people in the society.
Another key aspect that should be included in the presentation placed on the website of the school district is the standards of education in each school. It might be impossible to put the entire curriculum into the presentation but nevertheless, the standards of education in the district should be included. This means writing down the most basic standards of education in the district, for example, a list of the learning objectives of each grade in the K-12 curriculum. This is a very crucial detail as it will make prospective teachers determine whether they can be able to follow and meet the expected standards and objectives the education system in the district. There should be the mention of the Common Core Standards which are currently being implemented in the school district. The PowerPoint should explain how teachers are individually contribute towards the implementation of these standards including how to meet these standards. Special programs offered in the school’s district curriculum should also be mentioned. For example, the school district currently offer an Advanced Placement (AP) program in several schools in the district and this should be explained sufficiently in the presentation.
The other key item that must be included in the presentation relates to salary. There is no doubt that the financial incentives can be the primary determinant of whether certain teacher will be attracted to a given school district. All the other factors may be attractive but if the salary schedule is not pleasing, it can put off teachers who have shown interest in the school district. In addition, failure to present the salary schedule may make prospective teachers have unrealistic expectations only to be disillusioned once they start working and realize that the schedule is not as per their initial expectations. This may lead to job attrition. The presentation must therefore feature a full scale description of the salary schedules of all levels of teacher in the district.
The final item that is also very crucial and that should be included in the presentation relates to key events in the school’s district calendar. The presentation must perform a rundown of all the major events that take place in the school district whether academic or none-academic. Prospective teachers are bound to be attracted to the school district if they deem that the district holds annual events that are not meant for the benefit of the students but also for the teachers. These could for example include career days or even seminars and workshops that augment the teacher’s skills and abilities.
The inclusion of all these elements will play an enormous role in attracting teachers to the schools in the district. It is recommended that the school district board takes into serious consideration all the element that have been mentioned above. These elements should form the basis of the website presentation. This does not mean that the only elements that should be included. More will be added as time goes on as the needs of the various school within this this district change or as the expectations of new teachers change.

References

Smithers, A., & Robinson, P. (2000). Attracting teachers: Past patterns, present policies, future prospects. Carmichael, Liverpool.
Clotfelter, C. T., Ladd, H. F., Vigdor, J. L., & Diaz, R. A. (2004). Do school accountability systems make it more difficult for low‐performing schools to attract and retain high‐quality teachers? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 23(2), 251-271.
Figlio, D. N. (1997). Teacher salaries and teacher quality. Economics Letters,55(2), 267-271.
McKenzie, P., Santiago, P., Sliwka, P., & Hiroyuki, H. (2005). Teachers matter: Attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers. OECD.
Moon, B. (2007). Research analysis; Attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers: A global overview of current policies and practices.