We Care….about education

Posted on February 7, 2007
Filed Under Community Partnerships, Education, Out of Market Recruiting, Trailing Spouse Program, Socially Responsible Recruiting |

Well, it is that time of the year again. It is teacher recruiting season. Since 1989 a group of business professionals have gathered to assist the Clark County School District (CCSD) with the recruitment of new teachers to Las Vegas. The “We Care” program is a business-education partnership spear-headed by the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce.

I have had the good fortune of being the chairperson for the We Care committee for the past two years. Our committee always gets together in the beginning of the year to asses the challenges we face for the upcoming school year. After you hear about the recruiting challenges CCSD faces each year, you will look differently at what you consider to be recruitment challenges within your organization. Let me give you some basic facts:

Each year CCSD builds an average of 12 new schools
This year student enrollments tipped 300,000
On average, over 3,000 new teachers are needed each year
Our local colleges and universities provide us with just 400
The remaining new teachers must be recruited from other states
The starting salary for a new teacher last year was $33,500
The average new teacher can only qualify for a $139K home

As you can see, we have some challenges. How do we overcome these challenges? That is where the “We Care” committee comes in. We have developed probably the most sophisticated recruiting system that allows ambassadors (local business professionals) the ability to volunteer their time to assist the human resource department of CCSD to recruit teachers.

When an offer is made from the CCSD Applicant Tracking System, the prospective teacher is assigned an ambassador. There is a likelihood that the ambassador is from the same home state as the new teacher, matched by the intelligence we developed within the system. The ambassador works with the potential teacher to answer any questions that they may have to assist them in making a positive decision to relocate to Las Vegas.

What are the common discussion points? Primarily they are “quality of life” questions. What is there to do? Where do we live? Do we eat at the buffets? Is there life outside of gaming? And then there are the more serious questions of how is our healthcare system, education system, cost of housing and other cultural inquiries.

As you can understand, it sometimes is a tough sell. One of the biggest selling points for us has become the “Trailing Spouse” program Recruiting Nevada has developed over the past few years. This is another sophisticated piece of software developed to assist the husband, wife, partner or child of new teachers in finding gainful and meaningful employment. We have discovered this is the number one area of concern.

The Trailing Spouse program conducts some candidate matching functionality and introduces educated and qualified family members to local employers. Many times it is the job offer to the “trailing spouse” that allows the schools district to secure the much needed new teacher. It is a true win-win situation for both the school district and the employer.

So after we refined all of our “Talking Points” to make sure that the information we provide to potential teachers is accurate, we learned that we need to do some recruiting of our own. The We Care committee is in need of a few committed and passionate business professionals to assist us in this worthy cause. It does not pay monetarily, but the rewards are much bigger. It helps build a better foundation for Las Vegas. Those 300,000 students will be our workforce in years to come.

I encourage you to volunteer your time. If you don’t have time to offer, consider posting your jobs on NVJobSearch.com to assist in the “trailing spouse” program. Please contact me with any questions you may have. I know We Care - do you?