Teaching positions in MCPS

[Anonymous]

I am living outside the DC area currently but am interested in moving to the area and getting a job teaching history at the middle school or high school level. I checked out the MCPS website under HR and didn't see any vacancy listings. Are there any job fairs in the spring, or how would I go about expressing my interest to the county? Thanks for any insights.

[Anonymous]

I think the county had a hiring freeze but I am not sure if they lifted it or not. Don't hold your breath on the job. Apply to more than one county and maybe privates too. There are tons of out of work teachers around and not many positions. Just looked at their website and it says the freeze is into effect until this July. Doesn't hurt to apply though.

[Anonymous]

MCPS teacher here. Hiring for new teachers expected to be very tight this year. Most openings will be in hard to fill areas: special ed, math, science, spanish. MCPS fills transfer positions first (voluntary and involuntary) before interviewing people new to the system.

[Anonymous]

Weast just announced that 650 positions would be cut for next year. Granted, most are not classroom teachers, but class size will be going up and many people who are losing their non-classroom jobs might be trying to get back in and they will have first dibs on openings. Basically, don't hold your breath - sorry!

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for the info, even if it's bad news. I don't suppose anybody knows of any DC Area private or parochial schools that would be hiring a history teacher?

[Anonymous]

http://www.independenteducation.org/

This website has job postings for the private schools in the area. GL!

[Anonymous]

Op, have you considered Frederick County? That is where I started. A fair number of MCPS teachers started in Frederick County.

[Anonymous]

Here is the list of cuts to the MCPS budget proposed by Superintendent Jerry Weast on Friday.

http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2011/01/13-central-office-positions-sliced.html

Administrators, credit cards, restaurant meals, travel, conferences and car allowances are all spared.

Classrooms and services for students, no so lucky.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, have you considered Frederick County? That is where I started. A fair number of MCPS teachers started in Frederick County.

OP here, hadn't though to that but will look into it-thanks for the suggestion.

[Anonymous]

Anybody will tell you (and you likely already know well) that social studies is probably the most difficult subject area to be hired in, even in private schools. Even if you look to Frederick, PG or Howard Counties, again, that subject area is very difficult to find a job in. In late spring, mcpscareers.org will start having job postings for the next school year, although most if not all of those posted positions will go to transfers. Still, it would be worth looking at to get an idea of exactly the ratio of social studies positions there are, compared to math, science, chemistry and foreign language. Even ESOL, once a high-need area, is becoming more difficult.

Obviously suggesting you get certified in a different content area might be a stretch, but if you do have another area of "expertise," I would recommend taking the Praxis in it, to make yourself more attractive (especially if it is in one of those critical areas).

I would look to other local counties, but know that the ocean is tight with many many fish. Another big suggestion I would give is to become a substitute teacher. The pay is fairly decent in MCPS as far as subs go--for certified teachers, it's around $130 for a full day, $180 a day for a long-term assignment (10-plus consecutive days). Plus I think there's still a $400 summer bonus (I know, wow) if you sub more than 300 hours in the school year.

Subbing is what I did for about 3 years while I was getting my masters in ESOL, and it was a great way to make connections and build relationships with principals. Also, due to the hiring freeze, any vacancies in non-critical content areas that DO appear will be filled with long-term substitutes anyway. If you've already established yourself in a cluster, a principal is more likely, obviously, to hire a teacher s/he already knows and has confidence in.

I would really recommend subbing if you are able (no benefits, unfortunately) in order to get in the door, and maybe explore other content areas as well. Looking to other counties and private schools is something you will probably do anyway, but everybody is in the same boat with hiring new teachers--nobody is doing it.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

OP here. PP at 01:17 thanks so much for that detailed answer.

[Anonymous]

1:17. I am getting my ESOL endorsement currently. Do you work in that field? How difficult was it to find a position?

[Anonymous]

1:17 here--a lot of classroom teachers have added ESOL to their repertoire to try something different and get out of the classroom, which means it's not as critical needs as it used to be, even just a few years ago. I got my masters through a MCPS partnership program, and that program no longer does ESOL because it's not critical anymore.

That being said, it's not impossible and there were several job openings this year that did not get filled by contracted teachers. If you are willing to be flexible, you should be able to find something. One aspect of ESOL is that schools get cut-up allocations (1.5, 6.2, 4.7, etc) so somebody has to be part time. This is my third year teaching ESOL at the elementary level--my first year, I was .4 in one school, .4 in another (I decided NOT to find a .2--two schools is enough!). The next year, I was .4 and .6, at the same two schools. This year I'm .2 somewhere else and .8 at the other school. Next year, that principal expects to be able to bring me on as 1.0. It's not the best way to do it, but it's also something you can get used to.

Finding a 1.0 at one school is the difficult part. Finding a position at all is not hard if you're willing to be flexible. The nice thing is that it can be combined with other part-time positions, like academic support or reading recovery in elementary, or any other content area in HS/MS (I have a colleague who is .6 ESOL and .4 English in one MS). And if you only want to be part-time, it's possible to find something. Can't do that with many other content areas.

[Anonymous]

Thanks a lot PP. The ESOL teacher who comes to my school works between 2 schools herself and is a .8 or so. I tried to return to ES classroom teaching this year but there just weren't any positions after the excessed teachers were placed. Can you tell me more about your students? How many do you have or for how often/long? The ESOL teacher who comes to my school (I'm a paraeducator) serves 2-3 students 2-3 days a week for a few hours. She pulls them individually out of class and works with them. Her office (she says it was a bloom closet) is at a neighboring ES where she has more students. Just interested in learning about different job set-ups. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

There are a million different models for ESOL. For example, my .8 school is Title I, and there are 7 ESOL teachers all together. We primarily co-teach. Only Level 1 students are pulled out into small groups of usually no more than 5, for 30-45 minutes every day. Level 2 and 3 students stay in their classroom and the ESOL teacher comes in and works with them there. For lower grades, like kindergarten, all ESOL students stay in the classroom. I have one K class I see every day--I go in there and teach an ESOL-ish lesson to the whole class for 45 minutes while the classroom teacher supports. Each K class has their own ESOL teacher that does that, every day.

In upper grades, the ESOL students are clustered into the same classrooms for reading/writing, and the ESOL teacher comes in to co-teach during writing.

This is the only school I've seen it done this way, but with 50% of the students in ESOL, it's what works best. In my previous school, there were only about 15 students in ESOL total. I split them by grade and saw them 2-3 times a week in a small group in "my room" (yeah, a closet pretty much. A nice closet, though!) At my current other school, I see two groups, two times a week for 40 minutes each in my room.

Sometimes you will see ESOL teachers take a group of ESOL students aside in the their classroom to work on new lessons, or to work on their regular lessons with an ESOL spin. The basic models are: Pull out (using either ESOL curric or RLA), plug-in and pull aside, plug-in and support what they're already doing, or co-teaching. Co-teaching requires the most planning, but it works best in a high ESOL pop. school. The "official" number is that for every 44 students, there should be one 1.0 teacher, but the students don't always get split up along these numbers... some teachers end up with more on their caseload, some less.

All in all, I love it--the kids are great and for the most part WANT to learn what you're teaching, and the parents are usually also great.