Clinical Field Experience A: Recruiting and Interviewing

Vanessa Singh
EAD 536
6/3/2021
 Clinical Field Experience A: Recruiting and Interviewing

In this field experience, I had the opportunity to discuss these questions with my mentor.

I already had experience in the interview process since my mentor is the first principal to include

the teachers in the interview process. In the past years at the same school, no principal had

included teachers or leads in the interview. It was an exciting time for me to experience what

made me want to become a great leader like my mentor.

Our school district recruits teachers via job fairs. The district has personnel do short

interviews in job fairs and then take resumes to the district for principals to choose from. The

school district also recruits teachers on its website. The website has jobs posted where candidates

can apply to a specific position, and principals can choose from various candidates. After the

principal and the person decide which candidate to hire, Human Resources must call the

candidate to let them know they were selected. The Board and superintendent can move to

approve the recommendation. My mentor has the assistant principal, the instructional coach, the

department head, and one teacher sitting in the interview process—the interview team changes

depending on the subject area that needs to fill a position. My mentor has always tried to fill in

the core subject areas first, and whichever has fewer candidates. In the past, my mentor

mentioned he couldn't wait on positions for math, science, or ELAR teachers as they have few

people applying, and they don't want the teachers to get hired by other schools. In one of the

interviews, my mentor included me when we needed a math teacher; we lost a teacher because

HR was on vacation. When they called the candidate a week later, he had already signed a

contract with another teacher. When making hiring decisions, the candidate first applies to the

website or job fair. After HR clears the person, the principals choose which people they would

like to call to set up interviews. Once the interviews occur and the committee decides on a
candidate, they inform HR, and the Board and superintendent need to approve. When I was

included in the interviews in the past, my mentor gave me a list that already had a set of

questions we would ask. My mentor just told us that we would rotate and ask the questions and

write on that paper any notes to go over once the interviews were done. The questions had

behavior-focused questions since we have a rough group of students that can be very problematic

and not many teachers last.

The interview process varies from district to district, but my mentor in the interviews felt

good to be included. Standard six, subset a states, "Recruit, hire, support, develop, and retain

effective and caring teachers and other professional staff and form them into an educationally

effective faculty" (National Policy Board for Educational Leaders 2015, pg. 14). I believe adding

teachers and leads to interviews should be mandatory for all schools. Adding teachers and leads

will only lead to positive school culture and climate that many schools don't have.
 Reference

National Policy Board for Educational Administration. (2015). Professional Standards for

Educational Leaders, 14. Retrieved from http://www.npbea.org/wp-

content/uploads/2017/06/Professional-Standards-for-Educational-Leaders_2015.pdf