Recruitment & Retention

Recruitment and Retention: Staff, Students, Community Partners

In order to attract high quality, effective, and equity focused candidates to Austin ISD, the staffing and recruiting department has developed a Strategic Recruitment and Partnership Plan. Plan development takes into account district and individual campus data as well as information from Targeted Improvement Plans to better identify the campuses needing differentiated strategies. The Effective Schools Framework and AISD Equity Plan analysis, as well as district and campus diversity trend data, were specifically used for the creation of the Strategic Staffing Model included in the recently board-approved School Changes Plan. An overview of strategies used for the current school year include the following:

University Recruitment Events - A concerted effort is made to focus on specific education preparation programs that meet the District’s expectations and needs. A thorough analysis of all past recruiting events, hiring data, and program offerings will be completed in order to select the most beneficial university partnerships from across the nation for future recruitment initiatives. It is the intent of the initiative that these schools will receive additional recruiting efforts to build relationships and true pipelines of high-quality teachers and administrators.

District Recruitment Events - AISD plans and coordinates a comprehensive list of in-district recruitment events that include district wide job fairs, meet and greets, student teacher social and touch points, information sessions, resume and interview writing workshops, mock interview/feedback sessions, and chat with a recruiter among other events.

Conference Presence - In order to establish Austin ISD as an international destination for education professionals, AISD participates in state and national conferences, specifically conferences that focus on minority groups. It is the intent that Human Capital maintains a presence by presenting research or best practices at conferences, bringing visibility to the district. Human Capital also leverages current employees throughout the district who are facilitating presentations at conferences. Recruitment packets are available to those presenting at conferences to add to their conference presentations that include talking points and slides.

Regional Events - The Office of Human Capital has historically focused recruitment efforts on recruiting within the state of Texas. Due to the competitive nature of recruiting qualified teachers and administrators, the Human Capital team also focuses efforts into out of state recruitment opportunities. Human Capital has strategically analyzed data from the Applitrack system to pinpoint regions where AISD receives the most applicants. The data has shown that we have had an increase in applications from Oklahoma, Florida, Illinois, Arizona, and California. Regional event presence will be targeted to those cities.

International Recruitment - The district participates in the Spanish Ministry Visiting International Teachers Program and recruits an average 20 dual language teachers per year. In addition, the district also has a partnership with Alliance Abroad to recruit up to 50 Visiting International Teachers from Philippines (SPED Teachers), Africa, Colombia and Mexico (Dual Language Teachers).

Other recruitment strategies include foreign visa sponsorship, student teacher recruitment, grow your own initiatives, partnerships, sourcing by creating tailored candidate lists, recruitment incentives and support, and an increased district social media presence.