leadership in high schools

Today we have 6 students registered in the classroom, a teacher’s aide but no appointed special education, content certified teacher.  Three things are possibly at play:

All teachers qualified for this position and certified in New York state are employed within schools in the area

There exist no teachers in the area who meet the qualifications of this position as evidenced by the open position

The position being opened in the 5th week of the new school year has not garnered the interest of qualified candidates who are out in the employment pool and who perhaps have made commitments to employers in fields other that education

My concern at this point as that we get a teacher as soon as possible for this classroom that is comprised of eager students, willing and trusting in our school system – students who believe they have a future and that future is a high school diploma, a job after school, college or a trade school.  I believe in this student population and I believe that we shall find this teacher to join our exciting instructional team at the Hewes Center. 

If you are that person, please contact me via this blog post or email our Human Resources Director, JoAnn Johnston at jjohnston@e2ccb.org.  You will need a cover letter, a professional resume, official college transcripts, three letters of reference, three telephone references (different from the written references) and a completed Erie 2 CC BOCES professional application.  The latter can be downloaded from our official website. 

Do you have other thoughts/ideas that might affect why the job pool is so shallow in our area?  I know there are teachers out there who want to make a difference in students lives – where are you?

Together with Kevin Bourgoine, Supervisor, the teachers and I at the Hewes Center have embarked on a positive behavior involving school cultural change for high school students in our instructional programs – both Alternative and Special Education.  At the recent Superintendent’s Conference Day for Teachers and Related Service Professionals – counselors, speech teachers, occupational and physical therapists, two important sessions were offered – Dr. Larry Mahady, a positive behavior specialist who is a professor at SUNY Fredonia spoke about instilling a behavior plans for classroom teachers and programs that are student focused;  Raising Kane was a movie that was shown about student behavior.  These two offerings are are impetus to us as a faculty developing a sound behavior plan that can be positively modelled for students and supported by all faculty and staff.  Faculty will meet weekly to explore ideas and commit their thoughts to paper.  Facilitators have been chosen for these deliberate meetings and weekly sessions will be moderated.  Our facilitators for this important work chosen both by a vote of approval and by volunteering are Cindy Jackson, social studies teacher, Wendy Darling, counselor and Thea Kester, certified social studies teacher, counselor and presently the ISS/OSS teacher. 

We have begun these discussions via weekly team meetings involving the High School teachers at Hewes.  At today’s meeting, Kevin and I, program supervisors, distributed student incentives that teachers can use at their discretion with students, complimenting them for positive behavior and growth.  The Pass it on Effect (Doing Good and Passing it on) is I believe on its way to taking hold at Hewes.