Recently I made a contact with a staff member at Washington State University who works with students in their teaching program. I have been invited to present at a class on March 20th and will be giving helpful hints in the job fair and interview process from the point of an HR person. I am excited about this opportunity in part because it will give me an opportunity to introduce Woodland Public Schools to soon-to-be new teachers as well as better prepare graduates for the next steps.
Beginning in January I send out monthly reminder emails to our certificated staff who have certificates that will be expiring in June. This helps keep there from being any surprises for our staff or the district. As they renew their certificate I update it in our system. I am also working on putting our teacher’s endorsements in Skyward which will enable us to run reports quickly when we need to see if another teacher in the district has a sought after certificate endorsement.
I am taking a more active role with Assistant Superintendent Asha Riley in the evaluation timeline for our certificated staff and how it can be best communicated to our administrators. I have created an HR calendar to use for this purpose and will be using it even more to prepare administrators for important deadlines.
I recently attended a seminar on bargaining that was very informative. It was encouraging to me to see how much our district does well in the area of building relationships with unions. We also work hard to have collective bargaining agreements that work for what is best for both the employee and the students we work so hard to educate. I feel better prepared to take an active role in future bargaining sessions.