Inclusive Teacher Recruitment & Hiring Initiative (ITRHI)

We are excited to announce the launch of the New Teacher Retention Toolkit!

As an extension of the Inclusive Teacher Recruitment and Hiring Initiative to support teacher retention. The New Teacher Retention Toolkit provides strategies for building a supportive, inclusive school culture where teachers feel valued, affirmed, and connected. It includes guidance on fostering teacher-centered leadership, strengthening peer collaboration, and launching sustainable induction and mentoring programs - especially to support newly hired teachers and teachers of color. 

To support schools with implementing recommendations in the New Teacher Retention Toolkit, the Office of Teacher Recruitment and Quality will facilitate a community of practice where school leaders and teacher leaders can develop strategies for implementation. Please use this New Teacher Retention Community of Practice Interest Form to express interest in joining the community of practice.

We are excited to provide the ITRHI Commitment Brochure to support your Phase I work!

It will help you to navigate through the process and access additional resources on inclusive hiring. 

If you haven't signed up yet to be an ITRHI Commitment School, please complete this form. 

The ITRHI Commitment School 2023-24 Guidebook is now available for ITRHI Commitment Schools to support their work during ITRHI Phase II: Feedback from Users and Continued Implementation.

The ITRHI Commitment School 2023-24 Guidebook will support you in identifying next steps to improve your hiring process through a school-based ITRHI focus area project of your choice. You will revisit your ITRHI Self-Assessment results to identify a hiring focus area. There are activities to support you in engaging in this work with your hiring committee to expand on the work you started this summer. 

Here are your next steps for Phase II to be completed by September 29, 2023.

1. Download you own copy of the ITRHI Commitment School 2023-24 Guidebook 

2. Review the ITRHI Commitment School 2023-24 Guidebook, particularly pages 2-5.

3. Plan for school-based implementation of an ITRHI focus area project. Sample timelines on page 4 begin in December and May but are also fully customizable so that you can build a timeline that supports your focus area best.  

4. Meet with your Hiring Committee in September to kick-off this work.

We look forward to finding out more about your school’s progress and experience with the ITRHI resources in the fall.

For questions, please reach out to us here. Please choose “I have a different question” from the “Please select the primary reason you are contacting us” and use the subject line “ITRHI Commitment School.” 

Please register with GoToWebinar to view this recording.

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Please register with GoToWebinar to view this recording.

https://register.gotowebinar.com/recording/2442476444728498947

A growing body of research makes clear that in a culturally diverse world, hiring a culturally diverse staff is an educational imperative. A Diverse Teaching Force Matters: An ITRHI Fact Sheet highlights the current state of teacher diversity in NYCDOE schools and additional resources to learn more about the importance of inclusive teacher recruitment & hiring. 

Your hiring committee will be the leading face of your school for outreach and it is critical to choose people who understand your community and are committed to an inclusive search. The Forming an Inclusive Hiring Committee: ITRHI Guiding Questions resource will assist you with targeting the right staff, building a team ready to work, and creating a common vision of success.  

Unconscious and/or implicit bias can appear in the hiring process without realizing it. It is an important to take an active stance and deliberately design a hiring process that works to mitigate bias. Use the ITRHI Unconscious Bias & Hiring: Common Understanding resource to learn about the most common forms of bias and how bias shows up in the teacher recruitment and hiring process. 

Consider the ITRHI Resume Review Checklist when designing your school's resume review protocol. While you don't need to adopt all of these items, leaning on them will create a workflow that actively mitigates bias in hiring. 

Start with the ITRHI Self-Assessment and then use your results to work your way through the ITRHI resources!

The ITRHI Self-Assessment can be taken individually, with your leadership team, or with your hiring committee. It will help you to identify focus areas for you to take next steps in your inclusive hiring work. 

The ITRHI Toolkit presents a series of practices designed to rejuvenate your hiring process. It was designed by principals and teachers for principals and teachers, combining research on bias, expertise from HR professionals, with systems used by some of the city’s most expert educators. We believe it will allow you to actively seek out the best candidates to meet the needs of New York City’s magnificent array of students. 

The ITHRI Structured Interviewing Guide takes you through the two most dynamic stages in inclusive hiring:

hosting an interview and evaluating a candidate’s performance. Both stages can feel exciting, high

stakes, full of tricky decisions—and for exactly those reasons, they are highly susceptible to unconscious

bias if done without adequate preparation. 

With this resource, principals and hiring committees will learn inclusive practices to support building the strongest community possible for students.

This self-paced module is intended to support you by doing the following:  

• Exploring biases as a school leader and how they affect hiring decisions;  

• Building skills to engage a diverse set of perspectives in your recruitment and selection processes.

 A powerful body of educational research reveals that students who are taught by teachers who look like them, who share similar cultural identities with them, are less likely to drop out of high school, more likely to aspire to college, and more likely to graduate on track. Similarly, educators who look like their students are more likely to stay with their schools, leading to a teaching force with greater tenure and expertise.

Review the Onboarding Grab and Go to finalize your new teacher onboarding plans. 

Share the ITRHI Toolkit Stage 6: Onboarding with your staff and utilize it to ensure that you are being inclusive in every step of the DOE’s onboarding plan for new teachers. 

Results from the New Teacher Survey show that new hires need additional support navigating the systems of human resources. Please share this Onboarding Roadmap with your new hires, your payroll secretary, and other identified supports, such as assigned mentors.