900 Applicants Attend PISD Teacher Recruitment Open House

April 4, 2005

School principals met more than 900 teaching candidates who traveled from near and far to attend Plano ISD’s Annual Teacher Recruitment Open House on Saturday, March 19, at Plano Senior High School. More than 440 applicants were walk-ins at the event, which provided an opportunity for informal interviews with all Plano ISD school principals.

“Comments over and over from our principals reflect how impressed they were with the quality of applicants,” reported Becky Wussow, director of human resource services. "Principals were able to interview guests in an open forum, meeting applicants with confidence that they had been screened for the highest quality and criteria set by the district. Our principals left the event with ‘armfuls of applications’ and were ready, in some cases, to hire candidates on the following Monday.”

Ms. Wussow also reported that, “Many applicants were ‘wowed’ by the availability of PISD staff, which included school principals, many of their teacher leadership teams, district administrators and nearly 500 volunteers comprising staff and community leaders.”

Annually, the school district hires approximately 30 percent of its teaching staff as a result of the open house. Combined with ongoing recruitment efforts in surrounding states, PISD is able to begin each academic year with a full staff for each of 65 school campuses.

Ms. Wussow did note a decline in secondary applicants - an ongoing challenge faced by districts across the nation - but she feels certain that the district will have a strong pool of candidates from which principals may choose for the new school year. She also reported "the strongest group of bilingual/esl teachers that we have seen in a long time.”

For information about upcoming recruitment opportunities, job openings, salary schedules, an online application, and much more, visit the Employment section of this Web site.