From Deseret News archives:
Utah shops online for teachers
Web site offers low-cost way of filling vacancies
The State Office of Education, faced with a teacher shortage, is paying about $100,000 a year to online service Teachers-Teachers.com to help it recruit teachers.
Teachers-Teachers.com CEO Brett Spodak likens the site to the monster.com of the teaching world.
"It's becoming our common portal for national recruitment for teachers," said Sydnee Dickson, state director of educator quality and licensing. "While up front the total figure may sound ominous ... equate that with traveling and setting up a booth (at a job fair in another state). We now have access to 50 different states. So in that manner, I think it's very cost-effective."
Teachers and student teachers from around the world put in applications on the Web site, specifying qualifications and where they want to teach.
About 25 percent of schools nationwide are linked to the service, Spodak said.
Currently, the site lists 7,638 certified teachers who want to teach in Utah — 581, the most of any location, live in Michigan, the site shows. About 7,350 Utah prospects live in the United States or U.S. territories; 107 live in Canada and 180 reside elsewhere, from the United Kingdom to the Philippines.
School districts — the service costs about $2,500 for each, Dickson said — can access the site and specify the area of expertise they're looking for, from special education to automotive technology. They can even refine their searches to only those considered "highly qualified" under No Child Left Behind.
Candidates are screened by the service, in that they have to upload transcripts and fill out an application, improving the odds of finding serious and qualified candidates, Dickson said. The service lets districts woo via e-mail the precise teachers they're looking for, rather than traveling to another state, setting up a booth at a college or job fair on a guess that someone might want to work here.
Last quarter, Utah school districts posted 170 vacancies and sent 180 e-mails to candidates through the service, according to the last Teachers-Teachers.com quarterly report issued in October. Dickson believes the numbers have grown since. The latest report is expected next week. The number of teachers at the time interested in working in Utah grew by 3 percent from the quarter before, the report states.
The service also includes a Utah teacher-recruitment coordinator, Spodak said.
"The challenge here, of course, for us, is everyone wants to hire the best teachers, so we're competing nationally for teachers," Larry Shumway, state associate superintendent, said.
