Information About Seeking a Teaching Job

This page is intended for those seeking a job as a secondary school teacher of English, grades 6-12.

Pre-Employment Seminar

Near the end of your student teaching semester, the College of Education will invite you to a Pre-Employment Seminar, and you should make every effort to attend this meeting. You will learn about Career Center services that you can use, Education requirements and procedures, and you will hear from people from school districts who do their hiring. You may even be able to do screening interviews with district personnel at this meeting.

Applying for a Teaching Certificate

Getting a teaching certificate is not automatic; you must apply for your teaching certificate. Begin the process as soon as you have completed student teaching and, if you are an undergraduate, after you have graduated and your graduation has been recorded on your BSU transcript (usually about two weeks after graduation ceremonies). To begin, go to the Office of School Partnerships and Placements, Education 222, and pick up two (2) teaching certification applications-one for BSU and one for the Idaho State Department of Education. Complete the applications and return them to E-222 along with your official transcript(s), your technology test results if they are not already on file in E-222, your Praxis II scores, and a check for either $35 for the certification alone, or $70 for certification and fingerprinting. (All applicants must have their fingerprints taken within a year of application for teaching certification. Most have this done at a location in Meridian; get more information in E-222.)

When you have completed and turned in all of the materials listed above, the Director of the Office of School Partnerships and Placements, E-222, analyzes your materials in order to verify that you have met university and state requirements for teaching certification. The Director only checks the requirements in your major teaching area. If you have met all requirements, he forwards your application to the Idaho State Department of Education, where any minor teaching endorsements that you may have earned will be added. This process may take something like a month, after which if all is well the State Department will send you a card that notifies you that you have provisionally been awarded teaching certification, pending a complete criminal background check which may take an additional three or four months. When all of this is complete, the State Department will send you the real teaching certificate, suitable for framing. (School districts may hire you on the basis of the provisional card.)

Using the Career Planning and Placement Center

The BSU Career Planning and Placement Center will help you seek a teaching job (or any other kind of job, either before or after graduation). The Career Center is located across the street from Bronco Stadium in the same building as the Alumni Office, and it is often open during school breaks when the rest of campus is closed. One of their services is to help you put together your resume, if you wish.

You should go to the Career Center at the start of your student teaching semester in order to set up a placement file. This file is mainly the container of your letters of recommendation, though you may include a resume, too. Upon your request, the Career Center will send this file out to any school district where you indicate you wish to apply. Typically, the most important letter in your file will be from your mentor teacher from your student teaching experience. In addition, you should have a couple of other letters; it is advisable that at least one of these be from someone who has watched you work in a teaching-related situation. This would include other teachers with whom you have worked, but could also include experiences you have had outside of schools, like camp counseling, teaching swimming lessons, or volunteer work you have done with kids. You may also choose to include a letter from a professor who can attest to your academic and personal qualities, or a letter from someone who can attest to your character or previous job performance. When you ask someone for a letter of recommendation, let the writer know what you need the letter for (so they know the audience and purpose). We recommend that you write them a memo with a reminder of your strengths, how much time the writer has to compose the letter, and other pertinent information like whether you will have confidential or open file letters. The memo, then, serves as a reminder.

The Career Center posts on their website (Bronco Jobs) any teaching job openings that they learn about from the school districts, and they also periodically offers workshops on job-seeking skills and strategies. For more information about the BSU Career Planning and Placement Center, see their website: career.boisestate.edu, or call them at 426-1747.

Applying to Specific School Districts

It is up to you to apply to specific school districts where you think you may want to teach. If there are school districts where you know that you would like to teach, go ahead and get an application on file whether they currently have openings in your area or not. When jobs do come open, the district staff will usually go back through applications from the past year or so and notify or consider those who are qualified. However, you should also watch the job opening announcements in the Career Center and the school district web sites and apply for those positions that look interesting or appropriate for you.

Each district has its own application form, which you can usually obtain by requesting the form over the telephone or through the mail, as well as in person. (Some districts have posted their application forms on their websites.) Contact the district's Personnel or Human Resources office.

In addition to the application forms, most districts ask for additional materials from you--but what they ask for varies widely from one district to another. Most or all will want a copy of your transcripts, but most will be glad to use unofficial transcripts (photocopies or Broncoweb print-offs) for initial screening. Other materials sometimes requested include:

· An autobiographical statement. (Be sure to include how teaching fits into your autobiography.)

· Your philosophy of education.

· A classroom management plan

· a PowerPoint presentation (lesson)

a Unit Plan

If you have written these kinds of materials for a class, feel free to draw upon them-but be sure to re-read them and consider your new audience and purpose. Some revision or editing might be in order. And of course, scour any materials you submit for proofreading errors; districts don't like to hire English teachers who appear to be poor at spelling, punctuation, or clarity.

The Interview

The function of application materials is to get you past the first cut and get an interview for a position. When you get an opportunity to interview for a position, be sure to prepare. Investigate what you can find out about the school district, especially if you don't know much about it. If the interview is in a location new to you, consider arriving early so you can drive around and look the place over. Rehearse aloud some of the points that you would like to make in the interview. Arrive on time, and dress and behave professionally. During the interview, try to let the interviewer know who you are as a teacher and person. But also remember that an interview is also a chance for you to learn about your prospective employer, so be ready to ask a few questions that might help you make a decision should the job be offered to you.

Typically, you will have more than one interview before being offered a job (though if the district is small or the position must be filled immediately, one interview may be enough). Larger districts often begin with a screening interview, in which you might talk with a personnel manager, an assistant superintendent, or a curriculum specialist from the district office. Next, you are likely to talk with the principal of the school that has an opening in your field of expertise. In addition, you may meet with the English language arts department chair or other teachers who could become your colleagues. Many people may have input about hiring, but it is usually the building principal who makes the final selection.

Once You Have Been Hired

Once you have been hired by a school district, the district personnel office will help you get set up as an employee. During the first week of the new school year, there will probably be orientation meetings for new faculty, at which you will learn the school's policies and procedures for such things as how and when to send students to the office or contact parents and so forth. As soon as possible, ask for and read the curriculum guides for the grade levels that you will teach, and examine thoroughly the texts and materials available to you.

Once school has started, you should find a mentor. Even if there is no official mentoring program in your new district or school, it helps to find another teacher who is willing to answer your questions and give you information and advice. Look for someone who likes you and doesn't mind helping you get started. Also, remember that professional organizations like the Idaho Council of Teachers of English and publications like the English Journal can be good sources of teaching ideas.

Once you have been hired, we would like to know where you will be teaching. Please contact one of your English Education professors or the English department and let them know what's happened.

By the way, members of Sigma Tau Delta are eligible to apply for the P. C. Somerville Award for First Year High School Teaching. The Idaho Council of Teachers of English also offers scholarships for early career teachers.

Questions and Answers

Q: What if I want to teach in a state other than Idaho?

A: Once you have earned an Idaho teaching certificate, your certificate will be recognized by other states. Each state has its own standards for teachers, however, and any given state may ask you to make up course work that they require and Idaho does not. Often, other states will allow you to begin teaching and make up such credits after you have begun working in that state. For specific information about transferring to another state, contact that state's department of education, teacher standards division. (Also, there is a book that publishes the teaching requirements and reciprocal agreements among all 50 states. Often the Career Center has a copy, and there may be one in the reference section of the library.)

Q: What time of year should I expect to be hired?

A: Generally, school districts request applications during the spring. By March, they will know what some of their openings will be, based on teachers who have notified them about retirement or resignations. So some interviews may begin as early as April. But the districts probably don't know about other openings, either because someone eligible for retirement hasn't decided yet whether they will actually retire, or because teachers whose spouses get better job offers somewhere else or have had other life changes haven't discovered this yet or haven't made their decisions. So teaching jobs mostly open up in the summer, sometimes even late summer. Another factor may be budget constraints; often district administrators who must make cuts have not yet decided where to cut, and hiring decisions must wait for budget decisions.

However, teachers do occasionally leave their positions during a school year. If the teacher expects to return, (as may be the case with a pregnancy), the district is likely to hire a "long-term substitute." Such a job can provide you good teaching experience, some income, and give you a foot in the door of a district. If the teacher will not return (perhaps due to serious illness, death, or leaving the teaching career), the district will try to hire a permanent replacement teacher, following the procedure above, but doing so during the school year.

Q: What if I submitted applications or had an interview and I have not heard anything from the district since?

A: Late spring is incredibly hectic in the schools, not only for students and teachers, but also for administrators, who have a great many end-of-year ceremonies to plan and end-of-year projects to complete, as well as monitoring the rising hubbub. During this time of year, they often can make only slow progress on selecting and interviewing job candidates, and sometimes hiring just doesn't get addressed for several weeks at a time because of more immediate priorities. In the summer, too, delays can occur when administrators take their vacations. Sometimes, hiring decisions must be approved by committees. What this means for the job candidate, of course, is waiting. You may have had a very encouraging conversation with someone about a teaching position, and still you may have to wait. That does not necessarily mean they have forgotten you or lost interest in you. It probably just means they have not been able to spend much time lately on hiring.

After you have submitted your complete application materials to a district, it is permissible to ask the person who collects those materials about the district's likely process and timeline for making hiring decisions. That will probably be someone who works in the district office in personnel. Note what they tell you, then wait a couple of weeks longer than they suggest. If by then you have not heard anything, you may call this person again to ask for a quick update on the status of that position, or the status of your application for district positions. Obviously, you want to balance your desire to know your status and get them to remember you with the district's need to proceed at their own schedule. Generally, it's best not to hassle people or they may lose interest in you.

P.S. If you discover that some part of this advice is inaccurate or incomplete, please let us know.

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