Teacher Recruitment

In general, teacher recruitment falls into two approaches - general promotion and targeted recruitment.

• You may employ strategies to generally raise awareness of your program, such as a postcard mailing, conference session presentation, or article in a statewide social studies newsletter directing teachers to your website to learn more. These cast a wide net for interested teachers and could be helpful if you are trying to build awareness of your program or organization. Depending on the method, they can be costly and may have a low return on investment. Postcards are easy to throw out, newsletters are easy to delete, and the success of a conference session often depends on how "good" the sessions are at the same time slot as yours. 

  • Maine History Day

  • Virginia History Day

• You may also try to strategically grow your program by reaching out and making personal contact with specific teachers or schools. While more time-intensive, it often yields a better return. Remember, it's not practical to try to triple the size of your program in any given year. Setting your goal to grow your program by a smaller number of teachers or schools each year is more realistic to achieve and support than exponential growth.

School Level Recruitment

Established Schools: Recruiting other teachers at an existing NHD school is easier than trying to crack a new school because there is a support system with the participating teachers. Encourage the NHD teachers participating at the school to reach out and begin a buddy system with one colleague each year. 

• Even more important than increased participation numbers, involving more than one teacher helps to "transition-proof" the program, making it more likely to be continued by others if a teacher leaves that school.

• You may also want to consider contacting schools that have lapsed in their participation. They are likely already familiar with NHD. Can you find out more about the barriers they faced and re-engage them? 

New Schools: There are several ways you may identify new schools. Look at a list of your participating schools or map them out. Maybe you can identify areas without participation? Maybe there are participation hot spots where you can leverage the program's popularity with other schools. Can you use your advisory committee or participating teachers to identify any leads for you?

• Make an appointment with the principal. Share the evaluation results highlighting that the NHD program fosters success across the disciplines; NHD reaches the high-risk students and the gifted; and scores improve in Science and Language Arts and History.

• Ask to be put on the faculty meeting agenda for a ten-minute preview of NHD for all the teachers or at least talk with the Social Studies Department.

• Because it is important to approach new teachers from the top down AND sideways, ask your established NHD veteran teachers whom they know at other schools and if they'd be willing to make a phone call about NHD as an introduction to you.

• Invite key teachers and decision makers to judge. 

Don’t be discouraged if the teachers don’t immediately jump on the opportunity.  Teachers are inundated with things they must implement daily, so it takes perseverance. Send a follow-up email to the principal and teachers thanking them for their time and put the teachers on a contact list so they can receive updates about NHD.  

District Level

Established Districts: Finding the best approach for a particular district is a challenge. In some cases, starting at the top is the way to go, but in others, it's the worst method. If you're not sure about a particular district, ask for advice from trusted teachers or administrators elsewhere who might know the best approach.  

• Consider that your best allies for reaching a particular district may be right in front of you. Your executive director/agency head and/or a board member may know the superintendent or another administrator in the district.

• If you are successful in meeting the curriculum specialist, cultivate them as an advocate for the existing NHD program in the district. Ask this person how best to spread the program to other schools and teachers in the district.

• If it turns out that a meeting with the superintendent will be to your benefit, consider requesting to speak at an open board meeting. But be careful not to jump too quickly to the superintendent if you've started with the district's curriculum specialist or anyone else. Give your initial contact time and follow up several times before you go higher.

• Take two to three articulate, enthusiastic teachers and students to the meeting with the superintendent or the board meeting. And always take the evaluation results with you. 

New Districts The tips noted above for established districts apply here as well.  In addition:

• Know the low success rate when approaching a new district cold. Invest the time in learning about the many cross-district peer groups for administrators in your state/territory. Most likely, there are regular superintendents, curriculum specialists, and principals meetings. These meetings may be county-based, regional, and/or statewide. If you have an advocate in these meetings, they can promote NHD on your behalf to multiple districts at once. It can be difficult to get onto the agenda in these meetings as they are tightly scheduled, but it's worth a try. Even if you get in, you'll want your advocate to do most of the talking for you. The peer-to-peer network will work to your advantage.

• Have a success story about another district that adopted NHD. Use the successful district to illustrate how it can work in the new district.

• To reach teachers directly, ask veteran teachers in participating districts to contact their colleagues in targeted new districts to introduce NHD and you. 

State Level

• Connect with the State/Territorial Department of Education: Department of Introduce yourself to the social studies curriculum specialist at the state/territorial department of education. Armed with the evaluation material, explain the program and the evaluation results. Explain that the goal of NHD is to improve the teaching and learning of history in all schools. Provide the names and locations of the participating schools and state your desire to expand the number of participating schools. Ask the social studies curriculum specialist to judge and provide the date and place of the Affiliate contest so they can put it on their calendar.

• General Promotion: Depending on your Affiliate, you may be able to take advantage of other "general promotion" strategies such as an ad in an education newsletter or publication, a session at a conference at a social studies organization, or a targeted mailing of a brochure or postcard. 

Pre-Service Teacher Training

This is a great way to recruit new teachers. Catching the new teachers early in their careers is like planting seeds in fertile soil. Make contact with the social studies methods classes at the universities in your area. Offer to come in and provide a 20-minute description of NHD and how to use primary sources. You also can offer to facilitate a conversation with your veteran NHD teachers, asking them to serve as supervising teachers for student teachers. Universities always look for good models in the classroom, though some are more open to new ideas than others. Working with universities can be a win/win situation. Check with the veteran NHD teachers before providing their names to the university.

• Bonus! These students can also be recruited to serve as judges!

If you're in the role of NHD coordinator, you believe in the program's value for students and teachers. In our enthusiasm, it may be tempting to inundate whoever you are talking to with every fact, story, and aspect of the program. The reality is, from the classroom to the competition and everything in between, NHD is complex. Sharing all your information - especially given how tempting it may be to delve into the minutia of the competition categories - may be more likely to turn them off. 

• First, identify their specific need or problem. What does this specific person (a teacher, librarian, administrator) need? What problem are they trying to solve? Trying to understand their point of view will help you to connect with them and focus on what they need to hear. 

• Next, how can you help to solve it? Provide them with the specific information in which they're interested. If they're looking for a way for their student to gain academic recognition, you can focus your initial conversation on the competition. If they're looking for ways to engage students, focus on the individualized aspect of the program. If they want to increase academic achievement, focus on the evaluative outcomes of the program. 

• Last, follow up with more information. Once you have piqued their interest, you can follow up with a complete understanding of the program. Share resources they can review on their own time, and be sure to follow up later once they have had time to process.

In 2010, the Pennsylvania Department of Education revised its teacher certification requirements to include increased field experience hours. The idea was for pre-service teachers to obtain more hours of work in their desired certification area, separate from student teaching. 

Professor Christine Woyshner at Temple University and Andrea (Ang) Reidell, Education Specialist at the National Archives at Philadelphia and Deputy Regional Coordinator of the Philadelphia region (NHD Philly) of PA History Day, put their heads together and came up with a plan that would help pre-service teachers meet the new requirement while also tackling an issue that has long plagued many a history museum professional: how to demonstrate to pre-service teachers that museums stand ready to enhance curriculum and provide students with meaningful and memorable informal learning experiences. Add NHD into the mix, and a pilot program was launched.

44 undergraduate secondary social studies teachers-in-training were matched with 22 area cultural institutions, including museums, historical sites, libraries, and archives throughout the Philadelphia region. The students spent four hours per week in the institution working on a project that would ultimately benefit area students in search of resources for their NHD research. At the end of the semester, the students and a representative from each institution gathered to hear brief descriptions of the many innovative projects completed and, most significantly, what the pre-service teachers learned about integrating NHD and museum resources to benefit students.

Below are some conferences that provide great audiences for an NHD presentation. Pursue regional and state/territorial chapters of these organizations as well, in addition to others you will discover:

• National Council for the Social Studies

• National Council for History Education

• National Council for Teachers of English

• Association of Middle School Teachers

Samples from Affiliates

• Sample Conference Proposal for Virginia History Day