Applicants say teacher hiring process in Philadelphia is too slow

Kathleen Dianora Duffy is just the kind of educator whom Philadelphia School District officials want to fill their 128 teacher vacancies.

She has a doctorate, 10 years' experience, and permanent Pennsylvania certification. She's dreamed of being an inner-city educator.

But she - and other qualified candidates - say they have been burned by a slow and complex hiring process that forced them to take jobs elsewhere.

Duffy applied to teach in Philadelphia more than a year ago, energized to return to the classroom after a few years of staying home with her young children.

Then, as now, there were dozens of vacancies in Philadelphia public schools, and she figured that with her experience and a good interview under her belt, she would be called promptly.

The job openings persisted, but the offer came too late to Duffy - a year after she applied. In the meantime, she had taken a job teaching at St. Joseph's Pro-Cathedral School in Camden. While she said she loves teaching there, she has had to accept that her paycheck is a lot smaller than it would have been in Philadelphia.

"I think they're just extremely inefficient at hiring people," Duffy, 38, who lives in South Jersey, said of the Philadelphia district. "I think they're just bogged down in bureaucracy."

After years of perpetual vacancies, other big-city districts have solved their problem. New York, Chicago and Boston opened their school year with zero unfilled teaching jobs, while Philadelphia had 166 openings, double the number of a year before.

Experts point to an outdated, overly complex system and a hiring schedule that begins too late in the year.

"They send you e-mails constantly about their recruiting events," Duffy said of the district's hiring process. "They try to put on a good front. But there's a disconnect somewhere."

Dina Hollingsworth, executive director of teacher recruitment and retention, said she knows that the district needs to improve in filling vacancies.

The hiring process will begin earlier for next year, she said, and her office is stepping up efforts to plug the current gap.

"We want people to come away with a different viewpoint," said Hollingsworth. "Things are getting better. We're really reaching out to people."

Part of the effort, she said, was last week's "Roll Out the Red Carpet" event, a twice-annual pitch to prospective teachers. Nearly 100 career-changers and students were wooed with classroom visits, pep talks and gift bags.

Kim Richardson, who works for the Department of Licenses and Inspections but just earned a master's degree in education from Arcadia University, said she was impressed by the reception and confident that the hiring process would go smoothly.

Richardson has applied for a job teaching middle or high school social studies, and gotten prompt, positive feedback, she said.

"They reach out to you," Richardson said. "They've been very helpful."

Sandy Avender has been there. District recruiters showed a lot of excitement about her resume at a job fair this year, she said.

"When people saw my certifications, they were putting all these asterisks on my resume, writing, 'Call her,' " said Avender.

But after months of silence on the district's part and frustration with failing to track down the right people on hers, she signed a contract with another school.

It wasn't her first go-round with the district. Avender also applied three years ago, but didn't get her job offer until late September - again, after she had started working elsewhere.

Avender is a seasoned urban educator with a master's equivalency and certification in multiple areas. The Philadelphia resident, 61, has taught in Catholic schools for 25 years, long enough for a vested pension.

"I'm going to be real blunt," said Avender. "I thought, maybe I could squeeze five years in the public schools, and with my experience, I could double my salary."

Along with second grade, she has taught middle school, plus science and math - areas of great need in the district and schools nationally.

"They didn't roll out the red carpet for me," Avender said of the district. "They didn't even put out an old tattered rug."