SCHOOLS LURE TEACHERS ONLINE

Several Southeast Missouri school districts have taken advantage of a new, online, teacher-recruiting service to find applicants for hard-to-fill positions.

Chaffee, Fredericktown and Poplar Bluff school districts are among nearly 200 posting job listings for teachers, guidance counselors and school administrators on a state-sponsored Web site begun Feb. 1.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education sponsored development of the site to make faculty recruitment easier in light of a competitive labor market.

The site is managed by SuccessLink, a Jefferson City-based organization that provides a variety of online resources for educators.

"We believe this project will be an extremely useful and economical tool for school districts across the state," Commissioner of Education D. Kent King said in a written statement.

School job pinch

Fredericktown school superintendent Dr. Jerry Kinder will use the Web site as part of a recruitment campaign to fill as many as 10 vacancies for the coming school year.

In his 13-year career in Fredericktown, this is the first time Kinder has had to recruit teachers to his district.

"In the past, teachers have come to me, but I can see that that has changed," he said. "I want as many listings as I can get out there and as many ways to access those listings as I can get out there."

Kinder said schools are beginning to feel the pinch of a national teacher shortage caused by a shortfall in the number of university students majoring in education and a growing number of teachers reaching retirement age.

Frustrations with low salaries, disciplinary issues and job burnout also take away from the profession's appeal, Kinder said.

"It's no longer feasible that those people in large numbers are just going to come to us," he said. "We're going to have to go to job fairs and cyber job listings to make ourselves available to them."

Chaffee school superintendent Dr. Arnold Bell said he hopes to lure guidance counselors from high-supply regions like central Missouri to Southeast Missouri.

Quite often, certain regions of the state have surpluses in a particular field, likely because of a university program or other factors, he said.

Bell said he hopes his district's size and proximity to Southeast Missouri State University will appeal to job-seekers using the Web site.

He said the site is convenient for school administrators, who can post or remove listings themselves, and applicants, who can apply online for a position.

"We do know a lot of educators use that page, and we're trying to attract people who have some form of technology background and who are interested in technology," Bell said. "Hopefully the school, atmosphere and location are enough to attract people to us."

WANT A JOB?

To view a list of job vacancies in area school districts, visit Jobs for Educators in Missouri Schools, a new teacher-recruiting service, at www.moteachingjobs.com