A Little Help From My “FRIENDS”

 

If you know me well, you know that I am a planner. With this in mind, you can understand that as I sit here with my last days at Wacousta Elementary dwindling down, I am a tad freaking out about what my future may hold. School starts up again three short months and I just want to know that I too will be along for the ride.

It is not like I have been preparing. I have thrown my resume and applications out for all to see. I have applied to jobs that would be the dream, I have applied to jobs that would be a nice back-up, and I have applied to jobs that I could not see myself teaching – but practice is practice.

With this job hunt obsession, I have had some amazing opportunities to interview for some outstanding districts and teaching positions. So far, I have interviewed for six school districts. This includes two phone interviews, five in-person interviews, and one second interview. Out of these interviews, some I have yet to hear back from, some have told me that have moved on to other candidates, and the others I still have the hopes of someone saying, “Yes, we will help you. You’re poor”.

I hope that the first stage of this interviewing process is over. From the past two weeks, my cheeks hurt from smiling and talking about myself too much. I want to know that come Fall I will have a classroom I am happy to call my own. This process has been tolerable strictly because of the amazing support I have been receiving from family, friends, and the teachers within Grand Ledge Public Schools. Past teachers of mine have been looking out for me with constant positivity and advice. Present teachers, who I have come to know and work with daily, have also given me good words and have connections with some amazing people and school districts.

Through this process I have had some interviews that did not go as well and some where I left feeling really confident in how I portrayed myself. It all comes down to the fit you have with the school. You want to give them the best of you, and if they want that – THEN GREAT! If not, why would you want to be working for a school district that does not value your extraordinary personality?

I can say one thing, I might have once closed with “this teaching position would be the bomb” – but I have never accidentally kissed an interviewer and/or wrongfully accused them of potential harassment.

At least not yet (;

 

interVIEWS | The Job Hunt

Interviews. The third part of the Job Hunt saga and probably the scariest.

I received a phone call on Friday, asking if I would come in for a 10-minute screening interview. I was super taken a back because the school it was for, I did not remember applying for (as bad as that sounds, it is the truth). However, it was for one of the open positions at a K-5 Elementary School. Either way, I was very excited for the opportunity and immediately said I would be more than happy to come in. The lady on the phone then explained within this 10 minute time, I had to answer the question, “Why should we hire you?”.

Umm …..

I have never been the person that can go on and on about myself. I need to have a conversation to direct my thoughts and plan my next move. It is just awkward. And for 10 whole minutes? Crazy.

First tip. RELAX. Get your creative juices flowing by working the right side of your brain. Jam out to music and move.

Well for my 90 minute drive to this elementary school, I did a number of things. I pumped up my ego by listening to Rihanna’s “ANTI” and Drake’s “Views”. I rambled on, out loud in my car, why I deserve this position and everything that supports my reasoning. I made a mental pros and cons list of accepting this job. And ate an entire bag of sour gummy worms.

Second tip. Go in with your blinders on. DON’T look at the other candidates and have them psych you out. That’s their intention – don’t succumb to fear!

I was feeling good until I walked into the waiting room and saw another lady who had her interview garb on. I immediately started comparing myself to her. “She is wearing a blazer and I am wearing a teaching cardigan”. “OMG she has a scrapbook for her portfolio and I have a three-ringed binder”. “She is wearing high heels and I am in flats”. Talk about paranoia.

Third tip. It’s okay to be nervous! Your interviewers know you’re nervous, they’ve been in your shoes before. They know what it is like. It would be odd for someone to love being interviewed and not feel an ounce of anxiety. By admitting to yourself that you’re nervous, it instantly calms you down instead of living in denial.

When I entered the conference room, I was greeted by the principal and two other teachers. I greeted them with a father-proud handshake and a smile that would make Miss America jealous. The principal said I had ten-minutes to sell myself and then she looked at the clock – WHICH WAS BEHIND ME. Talk about intimidation. Well my first method of self-defense is humor. So I cracked a joke and lightened the mood by pulling a Jerry Gergich and saying “Oh, jeez”. They laughed which made them more humanistic in my eyes and not dragons out for my demise.

Fourth tip. Be personal. If they have your resume, they already know the dry information that tells how you got her in life. They know the skills you possess, but want to know more about you as a person.

When my ten minutes started, I sort of blacked out. I think I explained that I graduated from Grand Ledge High School then obtained my teaching certificate at Central Michigan University. I spoke of my endorsements and my teaching internship. I told them what I wanted my classroom to look like and why that is important to me. I explained what volunteering I have done, classroom experience I have had, and how I have tutored. I included my skills of creativity, flexibility, positivity, and others that make up the personality of Ms. Briggs.

Fifth tip. Be truthful! I am all for telling people what they want to hear, but be true to yourself. If you do not agree with beliefs or values a school has, don’t fake that you do! You’ll just be stuck doing something you do not believe in.

I thought it was going okay until I mentioned that I am interested in Intermediate Elementary and Middle Level Education. As soon as those golden words fell out of my mouth, they stopped taking notes. Now, remember, I was applying for an opening in a K-5 Elementary School so this could easily mean they were looking for kindergarten, first grade, or second grade teachers. By saying that I was interested in upper elementary and middle school grades, they became uninterested because this immediately ruled me out.

This is completely okay in my book. When interviewing, the school is not only interviewing you – you’re interviewing them. You want to be sure that you are signing up for a position that you most definitely want. If I was offered this job and it was a lower elementary position, I would not have taken it anyways.

They emailed me saying I did not get a second interview – which was what I expected. Being denied a position is nothing against you. They are trying to find a good fit for their school, just like you are trying to find a good school to fit you!

You will have tons of interviews that go badly, just treat it as good experience. It has nothing against you as a person or as a teacher. You are trying to find a puzzle that your teacher puzzle piece fits into.

Just remember that “you could be the juiciest peach in the orchard, but there is always someone who does not like peaches”.

 

Check out Part I “Happy Hunger Games” and Part II “Apply, Apply, Apply” of the Job Hunt Saga!

 

** featured image is a creation from the artist known as Aubrey Drake Graham. Aka Drake. Aka Jimmy from Degrassi.

 

Apply, Apply, Apply | The Job Hunt

Alright, alright, alright! You found a teaching position you would like to apply for, thanks to the handy edition of “Happy Hunger Games! | The Job Hunt“. Now, all you have to do is fill out an application that explains who you are in detail, and let it absorb your whole personality, and display your teaching style, and your amazing sense of humor, and your ability to care for ALL students, and display your interests, and list all of your experiences, and … and … and you as a human being!

If this wasn’t difficult enough, you need to understand the jargon as well. What does it mean to be fully certified? What kind of experience do I have? Does student teaching count as a full year’s experience? What about subbing?

Are you screaming yet?

Here is an application broken down:

The first thing about applying for a teaching position is not wasting your time. If you already filled out an application on applitrack before, IMPORT IT! This can be done by selecting “Import Materials” on the right hand of the screen. It will have you log in and then select which application you would like to import the information from. This saves a lot of time and brain power.

Vacancy Desired:

This portion is where one selects the jobs that are currently available. You can select multiple openings and then your application will apply to all selected.

Position Desired:

This portion is where one selects a job that may open up. Meaning, if you are interested in only middle school mathematic positions, you can select this position. Then when it becomes available, your application will be submitted.

Experience:

Do not be light on this portion. Even if you are including your resume, still list your experiences and the job details that correspond to each position! If your student teaching and substitute teaching combined make up a year’s time, you better you say you have one year’s experience! Give yourself credit for what you have accomplished.

Highly Qualified:

A lot of applications ask if you are highly qualified or deemed highly qualified by a district or principal. Since I have yet to be employed by a district, I figured this meant I was automatically not highly qualified because I have not been observed as such. THIS IS WRONG! After stalking the MDE website, I finally found a reasonable definition.

“HIGHLY QUALIFIED” MEANS: The teacher holds at least a bachelor’s degree and is certified, endorsed, or authorized to teach the subject, and has one of the following:

• Major in the content/subject (or equivalent of 30 semester credit hours); or
• Passed a rigorous state test in the content/subject; or
• Completed a state approved High Objective Uniform State Standards of Evaluation

(HOUSSE); or
• Holds National Board Certification in the content/subject.

It says you must hold ONE of the following. If you have a subject endorsement on your bachelor’s degree – you are Highly Qualified to teach that subject. BOOM!

Specifically in Michigan:

HIGHLY QUALIFIED TEACHERS IN MICHIGAN: All elementary certified teachers who have taken and passed the Elementary Education #83 or #103 Michigan Test for Teacher Certification (MTTC) are considered Highly Qualified for grades K-5 (all subjects) and grades 6-8 (self-contained settings only).

All middle (6-8) and secondary (9-12) certified teachers who have taken and passed the MTTC for the endorsements listed on their certificates are considered Highly Qualified in those areas.

All middle and secondary certified teachers who hold a major in their endorsement area are considered Highly Qualified for that content/subject.

So check off that Highly Qualified option – YOU EARNED IT!

 

Under the Highly Qualified section, it usually asks you how you are highly qualified for your subject with a drop down menu. The options you can choose are:

• State Content Test/Praxis/NTE
  • If you have NO IDEA what the “Praxis” is or what “NTE” is don’t worry, I researched for you. The Praxis and NTE are state tests that are needed to become fully certified in most states. However, in Michigan, we used the “MTTCs” or our state test. If you took some sort of test for your subject and you got an email saying you passed – SELECT THIS BOX!
• Undergraduate Major:
  • Basically select this is you majored in this subject. At most universities, in order to be certified, you MUST pass the state test in your major. I am not sure whether or not there is an advantage of selecting “State Content Test” over this one, but if you passed the test, I would say so.

These are the only two options that would qualify for a teacher who is looking for his/her first gig. The others refer to continuing education or whether your endorsement came from a graduate degree.

Statement [Certified]:

In this section, there are usually two questions and they are usually the same two questions.

1. “Describe the skills or attributes you believe are necessary to be an outstanding teacher.”

and

2. “How would you address a wide range of skills and abilities in your classroom?”

Now since these are usually the same two questions throughout many applications, I highly recommend thoughtfully thinking out your answers and documenting them in a word document. Once you put your hard work into answering these questions once, all you have to do is copy and paste every time you see these questions. Seems like a no-brainer, but it also allows you to quickly revise if your answer changes overtime.

References:

With references, schools want at least three listed. If you are struggling with increasing your number of references, think about the people that have observed you teach. Also think about the order. Your references should be listed from who you would want this school to contact first. This also gives you an opportunity to import a letter of recommendation from each reference – which is a GREAT idea.

Supplemental Materials:

This is not required on most applications, but you should import as many materials as you can. For me, I have saved all of my documents so I can reuse cover letters if applying to the same district, I have saved introduction letters so I can reuse them in similar positions, and I keep a PDF version of my teaching certificate and college transcripts to easily upload. The more you put into an application, your more dedicated you display yourself.

Additional Information:

This is where you are able to brag about yourself in less than a paragraph. They do not want your whole story, they just want to know why you stand out over other people applying for the same position.

Additional Questions:

There might be a part of your application where you have additional questions to answer. These questions may vary but these are the ones that I have seen:

1. Why did you become a teacher?
2. What qualities make a “superior” elementary/middle/high-school teacher? How will we observe them in you?
3. How will you incorporate technology to enhance student learning in your classroom?
4. How will a student know that you expect them to learn in your classroom and that you will support them to meet that expectation?
5. Describe the role that relationships play in a classroom? How will you establish relationships with your students?
6. What are your areas of expertise and interest? What will that mean for students in your classroom?
7. What role will classroom assessment play in instruction in your classroom?
8. What experiences have you had that would make you a good candidate to work with high-risk population?
9. Describe your experiences in working in a team situation? Share the positives and the negatives of that experience.
10. Describe a time when you tried something and it didn’t work. How did you respond?
11. What is the role of the teacher in the total school environment?

These are always good to answer because they will more than likely come up in an interview.

Personal Surveys:

Once you fill out a teacher survey, you  may be able to import it to multiple applications. These are not often used on applications, but if there is – it is just a series of questions that try to determine your personality. One thing I made a mistake on is that it is timed. Make sure you complete this process without any distractions. Without even realizing it, a question timed out on me and I was unable to answer it.

Confirmation:

This portion lists any part of the application you may have missed. This gives you a chance to check your work. It also lets you print out a PDF of your application to keep for your records, or proof-read your work in paper form before submitting.

 

After you submit, you should receive a confirmation email.

The good thing about these applications are that they are rather similar to one another. Once you get the hang of filling them out, the process becomes smoother. You get the hang of it and they become less stressful.

If you ever come in doubt if something applies to you and your experience, just select it. In my book, I would rather select something that I am quite not qualified to do, get an interview, and then explain my idea of how I WILL BECOME qualified. Rather than not select something because I am unsure if I do or do not, then actually qualify, but not get an interview.

Good luck out there, future educators!

Like the Wildcats, we are all in this together.

 

Look for: “interVIEWS | The Job Hunt“. Part 3 of this saga!

Happy Hunger Games! | The Job Hunt

Welcome to the World of #Adulting for Early Educators!

Where the odds are – literally – ever in your favor.

Not like I am comparing finding teaching positions, applying, and then later competing with hundreds of candidates for that picture perfect teaching job to the Hunger Games  – but …. here I am. I am up in my tree, looking down on the arena that is the various Michigan Public School districts and strategically planning my moves in order to snag that perfect teaching job.

Mind you, my strategic plan is applying to almost everywhere hoping that someone will glance my way – this makes the whole “Help me, I’m poor” quite sadly relevant.

Searching for these available positions is an event in itself, but by being in a technological generation we somewhat have an advantage compared to those ten to twenty years ago. I have been going at this for about five months now, so let me bestow on you the things I have picked up.

The Michigan ISDs:

If you are like me and trying to only research school districts in a certain area, this map becomes your best friend. If you are looking outside of MI, make a quick pit stop to google and search that state’s ISD map. By searching the area, you can see which school districts lie in which ISDs. This way, you can get a jump start on searching specific schools’ consortiums and not wasting time google-mapping each specific one.

Map of Michigan School Districts and ISDs

2016 Best School Districts:

If you really do not have a preference of where you end up, google what the best school districts are. These of course are rated in numerous ways, but school districts are ranked higher than others for a certain reason. I say this in the most respectful way possible. I was surprised as to how low some school districts were ranked because I know personally they are amazing to teachers and students. Take this information lightly, but consider it when you research certain schools. Pinpoint the ones that stand out to you the most, find them on your trusty ISD map, and then apply!

2016 Best School Districts in Michigan

 

Consortiums:

Thank goodness for friends because I would have no idea where to start. S/O to Ms. Lutsic for giving a girl a starting place. I started with googling county consortiums that were around my area. This makes job hunting in a certain area very simple. It lists the categories of the positions off to the side and how many positions are available. Once inside your certain category, it gives the job details of each and a link to where you can apply. This link is usually associated with an applitrack application – which is explained in “Apply, Apply, Apply | The Job Hunt” (coming soon). These change often, so look back maybe once every two weeks or so to check on your area. I bookmarked all the consortiums have am interested in so it’s quick for me to check openings.

k12jobspot.com

Holler at Ms. Hubbard for helping me out with this one! Once you create a FREE account on k12jobspot.com, it becomes a tad overwhelming. Without filters, you will get job openings from administration departments, secretarial, maintenance, and transportation. Also make sure you are searching in an area you are interested in because a perfect job might pop up, but then you realize it’s in the middle of Kansas. The great thing about this is you can save certain searches to your account. So if I am looking for a Middle School Social Studies position near Grand Rapids, it will save that search which makes it easier to check up on. You can also set up email notifications if something opens up in what you are looking for so you know right away.

Jargon:

Some of the jargon used describing certain teaching positions can be confusing as well. It is super important you know what you are signing up for before you apply instead of your first day of school.

FTE (Full Time Equivalent): “FTE” is often followed by a number. This informs the applicant of what percentage of 40 hours a week they are being asked to work. If you see a position that says “.50 FTE”, this means it is a part time position about half the hours of a regular teacher.

High Needs: If a position is listed as “High Needs” that generally means that they have a high turn-over rate for teachers. This might mean you have a better chance of being hired at a school who is in desperate need for teachers – but there is also a reason as to why their turn-over rate is high.

(Summer School): Kind of common sense, but these are summer school positions. Applying for these teaching positions does not guarantee you a position for the fall. It just gives you a great opportunity to get your foot in the door at a district and work with great kids.

When to Look:

Now! Schools are starting to post more and more job openings as they find out teachers are taking their retirement early, the incoming class of students is growing, or if choice-schools are making more students come to their school. Do not get discouraged if you do not see your perfect position listed today, these things go throughout the whole summer as well. Many teachers I spoke with said they were hired within the last two weeks of the summer. Scary thought – but there will be jobs everywhere, all the time!

 

You know when Haymitch would send Katniss a parachuted package with bread or anti-itch cream to ease her troubles and help here through the games? Well, I hope this is coming to you in a brightly colored parachute. Searching for teaching positions is simple, but it often gets discouraging.

Just keep your head up, tributes!

Don’t let the sounds of cannons deter you from your dreams.

…. bad metaphor. Sorry 🙂

 

Look for “Apply, Apply, Apply | The Job Hunt“and “interVIEWS | The Job Hunt“, parts II and III of this saga!