New teachers put on the 'hot seat'

Over the past couple of months, a series of hopeful applicants occupied the district’s “hot seat,” the spot reserved for the candidate when answering a barrage of interview questions, which I myself experienced about a year and a half ago. This time, however, I was an empathetic member of the panel of interviewers, sitting alongside other administrators, teachers, trustees, and community members, with the express purpose of hiring the brightest and best to fill openings within our district.

School districts everywhere use some version of this interview arrangement, posing questions designed to scrutinize the candidates’ teaching experience, enthusiasm for students and ability to respond to a variety of educational scenarios.

However, the interview team for Whitefish has put some serious thought toward making the process more meaningful and revealing with regard to candidates’ skills. The reasoning behind these interview changes is based in global research, which finds that hiring, developing and retaining a strong teaching force is critical to exceptional student performance.

This spring we expanded our candidate pool using the website teacherteacher.com as a way to advertise nationally. In addition, our district hiring teams carefully scrutinized applications, searching for teachers committed to student success, innovative practice, teamwork, and continual improvement, in keeping with the district’s vision. In this way, candidates were selected for actual interviews.

What happened next represents the point of departure from the interviewing norm. Unlike other districts, which seldom, if ever, require actual demonstration of classroom expertise, Whitefish has added the requirement that, where possible, the candidates will demonstrate their teaching skill.

For interviews covering most of our district openings, students of different ages were assembled in the board room, a classroom setting was created, and candidates were each given a half hour to prepare a lesson, then teach this group of students.

During the lessons, interview teams looked for evidence of the “new three Rs,” rigor, relevance, and relationship. Candidates were expected to connect well with students (relationship), actively engage students in meaningful learning (relevance), and challenge students to think critically and deeply (rigor).

Although the difficulty of this unusual assignment was evident to candidates, the results were remarkable. Candidates selected by the interview teams demonstrated obvious expertise, warmth, commitment and enthusiasm. Interviewers felt confidence in their selections as a result of the new hiring practices.

So as you meet teachers new to the Whitefish school system this year, be assured you are meeting a number of highly qualified educators who have stepped into the classroom fully prepared to engage our children in challenging and meaningful learning. We are certainly proud of our newest staff members.

— Kate Orozco is the Whitefish School District superintendent