Despite the ongoing labor shortage within the United States, the Syracuse City School District has been able to recruit qualified candidates for various positions within the district’s 37 schools. Faced with a need to diversify their workforce, as well as to provide a strong education to the more than 21,000 students that attend the various schools, the district has been successful in bringing in new talent to fill executive positions. 

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    School districts across New York have tried to diversify their faculty workforce to better reflect the student body it serves. In the Rochester City School District, only 20% of teachers are people of color, compared to the 90% student of color population. These statistics come from a new report conducted by Education First in January 2021 which found that teacher candidates of color faced an isolating environment during the recruitment process, in part due to the lack of diversity in the first place.

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    Chief Humans Resources Officer Lisa Wade says the district is working to incorporate more diversity into the teacher workforce.

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   “We feel that it's essential to meet the students' needs as they see faculty that look like them, and have experiences that are similar to them. It’s really good for students to see that, and for adults to model that,” says Wade.

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    In addition to including more candidates of color for executive and teacher positions, the Syracuse City School District is also seeking candidates that are experienced when it comes to teaching in urban settings. Scott Persampieri, the director of recruitment and selection in the Syracuse City School District, says there are particular challenges when it comes to teaching in city environments, specifically within the city of Syracuse.

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    “Many of our students come from poverty, and there are challenges that result from that. The other thing is that there are students that are exposed to trauma, and what the impact has on students when they come to school,” says Persampieri. 

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    The hiring process for both teachers and executives is aimed to select the candidates that are most experienced with these unique challenges, according to Wade. For teachers, each candidate undergoes an initial screening, has their name shared with the building leaders, and is interviewed by those building leaders to see if they are a right fit. These leaders, who are executives within the school, make a final decision on the candidate. For executive positions, a committee board is organized that has a representative from each type of leadership, such as principals and superintendents. From there, there are several interview rounds, a recommendation may be made from a superintendent, and then a decision is made.

 

     The majority of new executive hires are those who have already been working in the district.

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    “Close to 90% of our leadership positions have been filled internally. There’s a lot of promotional activity, but that leaves vacancies in the teacher positions,” says Wade. 

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    The Syracuse City School District used to have several candidates each year for each position, according to Wade. However, the district has faced obstacles in recent years when it comes to recruiting new talent, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only worsened things. 

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   “We used to have the ability to screen out candidates, so we could get the best of the best,” says Wade. “This year has been one of the most challenging years in terms of trying to recruit certified and qualified candidates.”

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    From bus driver shortages that are threatening students’ ability to get to school to shortages of cafeteria workers, the school district is getting creative in order to operate efficiently. 

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    “The work we’re doing is research-based. We look at what other districts are doing, we read the research, and see what are the kinds of things that have been effective for school districts to fill vacancies,” says Persampieri.

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    Some of these creative methods include different varieties of a career pipeline, where students are encouraged to consider a career in education, and teaching assistants are offered jobs after shadowing a teacher in the school district. 

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   “We’ve launched a program with Onondaga Community College where teaching 

assistants work as TA’s in the district and can get their degree at OCC and all those classes are paid for. At the end of those two years, they can decide to go to SUNY Oswego or another school and get their teaching degree,” says Persampieri.

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     Persampieri continued, saying in some cases, the school district will pay for a candidate’s master’s degree if they agree to work in the district for up to five years. 

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     These programs are highly successful in bringing in new talent, explains Wade. 

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    “Most of our candidates that go through the program want to stay and work here. We have had 52 administrative moves since the spring, so that’s a lot of leadership change.”

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    The school district also heavily relies on graduating students from local colleges and is in the process of building more pipeline-style programs that encourage new teachers to stay.