DPS hiring scramble
By Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published March 3, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.
Updated March 3, 2008 at 12:17 p.m.
Javier Manzano / The Rocky
Chris Gibbons, head of West Denver Preparatory Charter School, observes a lesson on Wednesday presented by job candidate Katie Holz-Russell, education director for Breakthrough Kent Denver, in the foreground. West Denver Prep began recruiting teachers for fall 2008 in December and started hiring in January.
Some principals in Denver Public Schools say they're losing the spring race for top teachers because other schools don't have to follow the same cumbersome state, district and union rules for staffing.
Diane Kenealy interviewed for a teaching job at West Denver Preparatory Charter School on Jan. 9, received a job offer within 24 hours and accepted the position three days later.
Compare that rapid hiring to this spring's staffing calendar in traditional Denver Public Schools, which dictates principals can't schedule interviews with teaching candidates until the middle of March.
Even then, they can only talk to candidates already working in a city school.
A DPS principal who wants to talk to a college senior such as Kenealy, who spends her summers teaching poor children in Denver, has to wait another full month, until mid-April.
That's when interviews begin for teaching candidates from outside DPS.
"The process is cumbersome and absurd," said Manual High School Principal Rob Stein, who has led private and public schools in Denver.
Stein and other DPS principals said the district's hiring bureaucracy - including its late start and the preference given current employees - puts them at a disadvantage in finding top teachers.
"I absolutely know from experience I'm not able to get the best people," said Stein, who lost a teacher in August after DPS human resources staff dallied for weeks in finalizing a contract.
'The most important thing'
West Denver Prep, a college preparatory school serving impoverished families on South Federal Boulevard, doesn't have to follow the DPS staffing calendar.
As a charter school, it is freed from most district, union and state teaching regulations.
So Chris Gibbons, West Denver Prep's head of school, began recruiting Dec. 1 for staff for fall 2008. As of Friday, he had screened 239 resumes, interviewed nine candidates in person and filled two vacancies. Most of the openings are occurring as the school, now serving grades 6 and 7, adds grade 8 this fall.
Another nine candidates are scheduled for day-long interviews at West Denver Prep, which include teaching a lesson in front of Gibbons and his instructional chief, John Dues, and meeting with teachers.
By March 21, the Friday before spring break, Gibbons hopes to have filled most of the 10 jobs.
That's about when traditional DPS principals begin their interviews for fall 2008.
"Hiring is probably the hardest and most important thing I do," said Gibbons, whose school opened in fall 2006.
Students there outperformed DPS averages on state reading, writing and math exams in their first year.
"Hiring the very best people who have the very best alignment with our mission is one of the most significant ways we can impact student achievement," he said.
A late hiring start
DPS officials say they can't hire earlier because they spend January and much of February figuring enrollment and budget numbers for each of the city's 140 schools for the following school year.
Student projections determine how many teachers the district needs and, because enrollment determines state funding, how much money the district has to spend.
"What we don't want to do is start staffing," said Bart Muller, DPS director of human resources, "and then pull people out because the money we thought we had, we don't have anymore."
State statute and the district's contract with its teachers union also outlines the staffing cycles, including preference for existing employees.
Teachers hired in DPS are considered probationary for three years. After that, they're non-probationary and have first rights to interview for openings.
"We want to make sure we take care of all of our non-probationary teachers first," Muller said.
DPS essentially has three hiring cycles. First is an internal cycle for existing teachers. Then comes a cycle for current teachers unable to find jobs, the so-called "direct placements." These may be good teachers who have lost jobs because enrollment at their schools has dropped - or they may be bad teachers whom no one wants. The third cycle is the external cycle, when outside candidates apply.
A mad rush for teachers
For traditional DPS principals, the hiring pressure is intense.
Do you go ahead and hire that teacher from another DPS school, even if you're not sure about the person? Because if you don't, DPS could assign you a direct-placement teacher - and you don't get to say no.
And, what if you can't find someone better when you finally can interview candidates outside DPS?
"It's like you're trying to game the system; do I hire this person or do I hold out?" Manual's Stein said.
On March 13, DPS teachers will first see the job openings for fall.
On March 18, principals will get lists of which DPS teachers looking for jobs are qualified for their openings.
Then principals will spend the following five days in a rapid succession of interviews to secure candidates before spring break.
Bruce Randolph School Principal Kristin Waters called the process "a mad rush."
"It's very fast," she said. "Everybody is kind of jockeying for the same candidates . . . and they get lots of offers, and you have to try to convince them why you are the best place to come."
Kim Ursetta, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, said the mad dash doesn't benefit teachers. She said some will interview from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. before school, work a full day and then interview after school until 10 p.m.
"It's very hard to have a quality interview with such tight timelines," Ursetta said.
Piloting a new way
Stein said he didn't realize the speed at which he was supposed to move when he joined Manual last spring. DPS released its list of teachers interested in moving at 5 p.m. on a Friday, he recalled, and a teacher who had expressed interest in Manual was snapped up by 9 a.m. Monday.
"It should be an open process," Stein said. "Anybody interested in a job should be able to apply, and the school should be able to look at whoever is interested and hire who's best for kids."
That is the goal of a new hiring system being piloted this spring at Bruce Randolph, Manual and Grant Middle School.
Principals at the schools, frustrated by the hiring process and wary of "direct-placement" teachers, pushed for freedom from district and union rules in staffing.
Earlier this year, the DPS school board and the union's governing board agreed the three could try "rolling" postings, meaning the principals can post vacancies and hire from inside and outside the district at will.
So Waters immediately posted an ad for a high school chemistry teacher on the popular national Web site, Craigslist.com.
The ad, placed Jan. 27, has generated 15 resumes from across the country, she said. She's interviewed two.
Details of the pilot plan are still being worked out, but DPS leaders say the goal is to expand it to all schools next spring.
Muller said it is unlikely the district will be able to start hiring much earlier. And, largely because of state statute, DPS will need to find places for its existing employees.
But, he said, the goal is a system that allows principals to consider all applicants at once.
"The fact I will be able to talk to all of these candidates and be able to consider them for any position for which they're qualified, that's huge," Waters said.
"The bottom line is this will allow me to hire the best candidate to fill each vacancy that I have."
mitchelln@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5245
About the series
Denver Public Schools can change the way it serves 72,000 students - or continue tinkering around the edges of dismal achievement and stagnant enrollment in most buildings.
DPS Superintendent Michael Bennet conceded this after a series in the Rocky Mountain News last year explored why one in four Denver children do not attend the city's schools.
"It is hard to admit," he wrote, "but it is abundantly clear that we will fail the majority of children in Denver if we try to run our schools the same old way."
In February, DPS and its teachers union announced a compromise that will allow three of Denver's 140 schools to run in a very different way in the key area of hiring teachers. Friday, principals of Bruce Randolph School, Manual High School and Grant Middle School met with DPS leaders to figure out details of a pilot plan that will give them unprecedented control over staffing.
Today is part 3 of an occasional series looking at outside-the-box strategies already working in Denver. West Denver Preparatory Charter School is an example of a school whose leaders can hire and, when necessary, fire teachers with much more flexibility than most DPS principals.
It is one of the reasons West Denver Prep leaders believe their school is making gains with the very children failing in traditional DPS schools. How is this strategy working at West Denver Prep? And is the rest of DPS paying attention?
IN HIS OWN WORDS: JOHN DUES
John Dues, 28, is head of curriculum and instruction at West Denver Preparatory Charter School, a high-poverty school on South Federal Boulevard that outperformed district averages on state tests in its first year.
Dues spent three years teaching fifth-graders in Atlanta Public Schools and has a master's degree in education.
Despite that, he might not qualify for a job in Denver Public Schools because he doesn't have a Colorado teaching license.
Not surprisingly, Dues doesn't pay a lot of attention to state certification when it comes to hiring teachers for West Denver Prep. He's more interested in knowledge of the subject being taught, experience in urban education - and a sense of mission.
"We are really trying to find people who buy into our mission (and) the thinking that is kind of antithetical to what is more typical in a public school - the thinking that you need to raise a kid's self-esteem before you work on academic skills. That's the opposite of how we approach things.
"You don't build self-esteem through artificial activities. You feel good about yourself because you achieve . . . We want people to identify that self-esteem and feeling good about yourself and who you are as a student comes through building academic skills.
"I also ask teaching candidates about the importance they place on parental involvement. Their choices are 'essential,' 'unnecessary,' or 'useful but not required.'
"What we're trying to get at is, yeah, it would be great to have it, and we certainly want to engage parents whenever possible . . . but it should not be used as an excuse for why things didn't work. We don't buy into the excuse, 'Our test scores have not improved, but it's because our parents aren't involved, and we can't be expected to do this all by ourselves.'
"I also ask candidates, how do you feel about the structure here? That turns some people off, and that's OK. You've got to have a consistent behavior system before you do academics. If kids are going to choose to be disruptive, then they need to be removed from the classroom. I'd much rather have one kid out of the classroom and 24 kids learning than 25 kids not learning because there's such disruption on a daily basis.
"I don't think certification or licensure means you're more qualified to teach. Some of our best teachers have turned out to be people right out of college without any formal teacher preparation. Or Dr. Levy - science teacher Ellen Levy - came from academia, a professor but not a certified K-12 teacher. Who's going to say someone with a Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia is not qualified to teach science?
"You want to get the best people. We want to start recruiting as early as possible, we want to see as many candidates as possible, we want to talk to as many people as possible. Having control over that is just basic common sense.
"There's too much at stake. The time we have with the kids, and the ground we need to make up, we have to have the best people in the classroom if this is going to be successful."
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March 3, 2008
5:42 a.m.
Suggest removal
vudumom writes:
This is the type of person every school shoul have.No excuses and personal responsibility for everyone,from the top to the bottom.What a real concept hiring a professor with a Ph.D in chemistry to teach science.
I am pro union,however in certain situations and jobs.It's good to have a Carpenter's Union but bad to have a Teacher's union.
Some might say what is the difference? The difference is a company that hires a carpenter can fire him or her without the union getting involved.That person may go to another company but eventually that company will see the shoddy workmanship and the person will be forced to just go non-union.Word gets around if you are not good or you are good.
The Teacher's union however is different.You can't fire any teacher for shoddy workmanship.They will stay teaching year after year and the end product is poorly taught students.Even if a teacher has had many complaints that teacher will still be teaching.
The difference in unions is a building mistake can often be corrected immediately.A teacher who is of poor quality is allowed to continue doing damage for years and years to come.
Until the union addresses this issue and allows schools to hire teachers of great quality instead of so called certified teachers,until students are put first,until schools demand a kid be removed because of disruptions and until a school and teachers get it through their heads that all children are capable of learning despite their parental involvement(though schools really don't want that)or their home stuations,we will continue to have the chaos and low performance in our schools.The blame it on the kid and parent syndrome that the schools have adopted for their failures is getting old.The try to teach personal responsibility in the students the teach.I think it's time they start practicing what they teach.
March 3, 2008
6:05 a.m.
Suggest removal
jane writes:
The teacher's union voted to get rid of direct placement and do a rolling system district-wide beginning next year (after school closures). Why oh why isn't the Rocky covering that historic vote? It took place last month. In fact, DPS may be the only metro area school with such a system. In a way, it may make DPS less competitive because other area districts have tighter systems. Why does the Rocky focus only on DCTA when its contract/procedure is relatively standard and similar to other metro districts?
I would very much like to see DPS follow the model of West Denver Prep when it comes to discipline. You cannot remove a child from class in DPS without 3 parents contacts home and a written plea to do so. How much learning can a disruptive child ruin in that amount of time? Where is that part of the series?
March 3, 2008
8:37 a.m.
Suggest removal
kirbysfriend22 writes:
Of course, private schools and charter schools also get to choose which kids they admit, are permitted to have more strict rules regarding behavior and as a result can maintain higher expectations. I wonder if that has anything to do with higher test scores and attracting new teachers who are excited about teaching.
By the way vudumom, unions don't prevent teachers from being removed if necessary. They keep teachers from being removed for no reason, without just cause, just because you have a different philosophy, personality, skin color, whatever. If schools want to remove bad teachers they just need to do their job. Observe the poor instruction (rarely done), offer advice for improvement, document the poor performance, remove the poor performing teacher. Especially within that teachers first three years. Heck, then you don't even need a good reason. You can just fire them. For an administrator who's doing there job it shouldn't be that hard to identify who's doing their job. You'd be suprised how many classrooms NEVER have the principal observe the instruction. Maybe once a year. Test scores are supposed to tell the rest of the story?
I have news for you. Union members would love to see bad teachers removed from the classroom through the appropriate methods. It just means administrators need to do their jobs too.
March 3, 2008
9:14 a.m.
Suggest removal
Scott writes:
Bureaucratic government rules and union rules. The worst of both worlds. Truly pathetic, however, both the bureaucrats and the union goons will tell us that all they need is more money. Right, sure ... NOT.
Scott
March 3, 2008
10:11 a.m.
Suggest removal
dabuffs writes:
Here we go, let's start blasting the union! Give me a break!
THE TRUTH: Who would want to teach in DPS? Let's not forget that DPS has to scramble every year to fill classrooms in August with qualified teachers. I recently read an article how schools in DPS have subsitutes teaching full time in January of 2008 because they can't hire anyone. I don't think being able to hire new graduates in March will fill the unfilled vacancies they still have from August of 2007.
Why doesn't school districts like Cherry Creek or Boulder Valley have this problem? They hire in May as well. The answer is because you have to be a very special individual who wants to teach in the inner city. Unfortunatly, there are not enough of those individuals anywhere in the U.S.
So all of you idiots who blame the UNION for all of the public school woes, maybe you should look elswhere.
Most qualified teachers don't want to teach in DPS. That is not saying there are not good teachers in DPS, it is just saying that most teachers don't want to teach in an inner city school.
Give me a break!
March 3, 2008
10:26 a.m.
Suggest removal
Scott writes:
Hey "dafuffs",
I didn't just blame the unions. I blamed both the unions and the government pukes. With two groups of losers like this "working" in conjunction how could anything succeed?
Also, are Cherry Creek and the PRB school districts under the same union rules?
Scott
March 3, 2008
10:38 a.m.
Suggest removal
dabuffs writes:
Scott,
You want to blame the system. Fine, you can keep your opinion. The truth is that most new teachers or seasoned teacher don't want to teach in the inner city.
The answer to your last question is I don't know. I just know my kids go to Boulder Valley and the last time I talked to the Principal, she had over 75 applicants who dropped off their resume to teach at that school.
I doesn't sound like this one particular school in DPS has the problem of too many applicants.
I wish they did!
March 3, 2008
10:44 a.m.
Suggest removal
dabuffs writes:
For the record I am not a union member or a teacher!
Just a parent who has the choice of not sending my kids to DPS.
I could care less if they hire all year round, DPS will never fill all the vacancies!
I'm just tired of everyone blaming the "Union" or "The System."
I'm off to go volunteer in my kids classroom because I work the swing shift at Walmart!
BEST OF LUCK!
March 3, 2008
10:45 a.m.
Suggest removal
BetterEducated writes:
Dabuffs, as the wife of a former DPS veteran, I can say the issue is not so much teaching "in the inner city" but rather teaching "for DPS." This is an entity that has shown itself to not be credible or trustworthy -- a far more challenging factor than simply putting one's efforts into the disadvantaged. Lots of people would consider signing up to teach in deteriorated areas, but hardly anyone wants to get stuck with an employer that is prone to changing its mind every ten minutes, and surprising workers and the public with unexpected news about its plans for reforms du jour.
March 3, 2008
11:14 a.m.
Suggest removal
dabuffs writes:
BetterEducated,
My apologies, my intent wasn't to bash DPS teacher. In fact in my earlier comment I said it takes a special teacher to work there.
I take your word for the what is the problem with DPS.
March 3, 2008
4:41 p.m.
Suggest removal
donco6 writes:
This is a union issue, not a DPS admin. issue. The union demands that all existing teachers get first crack at all job openings. The only way that can happen is for there to be a set date by which all openings have to be posted. That can only happen AFTER the union deadline for all non-renewed teachers to be informed. Then there has to be time for the existing teachers to indicate their interest. Then they get to interview. Sometimes they can even transfer into a school if they have the seniority. I'm sure the principals love that.
To blame DPS in the headline is irresponsible. It's the DPS union that has to shoulder this mess.
March 3, 2008
7:38 p.m.
Suggest removal
jane writes:
Hey, Donco...you don't know the facts. There is no such thing as "seniority" in DPS and you can't transfer into any position. You must interview and the district has no obligation to take you. This is the last year of direct placements and transfers, as the union - on its own - voted last month to end that process. Once again, the DCTA stands out from other metro area organizations in terms of reform. Check into all other metro organizations - direct placement and administrative transfers are standard in teacher contracts not only in Colorado, but everywhere. So you're going to have to look for someone else to blame. The article said it's based on student projections and funding. You can't hire teachers until you know whether you'll need them or not - in a district as transient (and as broke) as DPS, you need a crystal ball to know that.
My kids' school is always either letting teachers go or finding long terms subs in the fall because the district projections are wrong.
March 4, 2008
6:46 p.m.
Suggest removal
donco6 writes:
Hey, jane . . . thanks for the update. It's nice to know that DCTA got rid of the seniority transfer . . . LAST MONTH. But as the article states, they *still* have direct placement . . . seniority or otherwise. They HAVE to, in fact. If you're non-probationary, the district is obligated to place you in a position somewhere. It doesn't matter if the principal of the school doesn't want you . . . the Master Agreement REQUIRES that the district place you somewhere, and that "somewhere" can only be a school (unless there's just a bucketload of teachers running around the Admin Bldg makin' copies). A non-probationary teacher *cannot* be fired unless the district declares a fiscal emergency and you go into the RIF section - which is entirely seniority based, by the way.
So the vote on seniority transfer didn't really amount to much anyway, did it? Which is almost certainly why it was approved.
March 4, 2008
6:54 p.m.
Suggest removal
donco6 writes:
Earl wrote:
"Some principals in Denver Public Schools say they're losing the spring race for top teachers because charter schools and schools granted autonomy don't have to follow the same state, district and union rules for staffing."
There are a number of items charters take advantage of in the hiring process.
One, they don't have to follow the deadlines for notification of non-renewals and posting of available positions. That way, they can be first in line for the Spring job fairs coming up at the end of March.
Two, they don't have to follow the district salary schedule. What many charters do is "compress" their schedule so that starting teachers are paid more, but they top out much, much lower than regular districts. This way, they get to snag the young teachers ("We're paying $10,000 more in your starting year!), and they jump ship once they top out at $45 or $50K. This can really hurt the teacher if they move to a district that won't honor more than 10 years of service.
Finally, many charters are free to negotiate individually with teachers. If they want to pay a science teacher more than a social studies teacher, they can. This is strictly verboten in a regular school.
One of the things charters do is compress their salary schedule
March 5, 2008
10:18 a.m.
Suggest removal
robineducation writes:
Hey Vudumom and the rest who do not believe that the home environment/situation and parental involvement reflects how a child performs in school: Do a google search or a bit of research once in a while for statistics on this subject before you form an opinion. However in the mean time, just read this (this is from the Harvard Family Research Project "Parent Involvement and Early Literacy"):
The most important finding is that, among all the parent involvement practices, the percentage of variance explained was greater for minority children than for European-American children and for poor children than for the non-poor children. Although educational resources at home were highly circumscribed in both low-income and minority (especially black and Hispanic) families, the good news is that a stronger relationship was found among school involvement, home resources, and early literacy for these children. The findings support the literature that a positive working relationship between home and school appears important for all children, particularly for children whose families are socially or economically disadvantaged (e.g., Comer & Haynes, 1991; Dauber & Epstein, 1993; Nord, Lennon, Liu, & Chandler, 2000; Reaney, Denton, & West, 2002).
Thanks, Rob