Do You Have Any Teaching Openings?

Wednesday, 6 July 2005

After taking Dad to his dentist appointment this morning (I was a little worried about being able to transfer him to the dentist chair, but it was no problem.), we roamed around Kahala Mall, then drove to many neighborhood elementary schools to drop off my resume. I started at Kahala Elementary School, the elementary school I graduated from long ago....it looked exactly the same. The principal said too bad I didn't come two weeks ago, as they had four open positions. But, he was impressed with my experience and may have a half time ESL teaching position. I drove to about ten other schools in the area, all the way to Waikiki Elementary. Some principals were excited to sit down and talk to me about golfing in Thailand to having an impromptu "interview" on the spot as we talked about curriculum mapping, standard based report cards, and guided reading, things that are new to Hawai'i's public school system. This one principal felt bad when she found out my dad was sitting in the car in the hot sun all this time, and sent me away with two ice cold bottles of water. Most schools didn't have vacancies, but some had half time positions in ESL or special ed. Once principals looked at my resume, they were eager to talk to me as the words "Master's degree", "special education", "Seattle School District", "Thailand", and "Standards" came out of my mouth. A few principals weren't interested in talking to me at all, reminding me that I must go through the district central office to look for a job, but I kindly left my resume anyway. Although I had a successful day of schmoozing, the principals' hands are pretty tied, as they can only hire from the handful of applicants that the district sends to them. And right now, there is a hold on all applicants as they got an influx of applications they are still screening. Do they realize that most schools here start in three weeks?!