CMS gears up teacher recruiting

Want to teach in a place with great weather,  exciting roller coasters and Swedish meatballs?  Then you might want to get in touch with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools,  which is recruiting for current vacancies and the 2014-15 school year.

CMS recruiters have already visited Pennsylvania, New Mexico, New York, Illinois, Michigan and Virginia,  as well as events in the Carolinas,  according to a recent report to the school board.  And the district has created an  "I Am CMS"  marketing campaign that includes fliers,  postcards and such attention-getters as  "I am 'mint' to work for CMS" candies.

The postcard highlights such quality-of-life factors as sports, Carowinds amusement park,  EpiCentre nightlife and the chance to shop for furniture and eat meatballs at IKEA.

On a more serious front,  CMS is hoping the expansion of highly paid  "opportunity culture"  jobs for classroom teachers will help lure top teachers from around the country.  Starting next year,  17 more schools will offer opportunities for their best teachers to take on expanded duties working with other teachers and more students.  Details will vary by school,  but the four-school Project LIFT debut this year offers supplements up to $23,000 a year.

If you want to read more about that program from someone who's in the thick of it,  check out this blog by Ranson Middle School math teacher Romain Bertrand,  who holds one of the new jobs leading multiple classrooms.

Bertrand

"For years, a sad reality has been hurting our educational system, at least here in North Carolina:  If you are good at teaching and you truly enjoy it, the only way for you to expand your impact and advance in your career is to … leave the very same classroom where you currently excel,"  Bertrand writes.  "This paradox has become a dirty little secret that we all whisper:  At one point, I am going to have to leave the classroom."

Bertrand explains how his new job offers a way to work around that paradox  --  without having to move into a  "facilitator"  or administrative job that keeps him from regular contact with kids.

Even as Superintendent Heath Morrison celebrated the Belk Foundation grant to expand the opportunity culture program,  he cautioned it's not the sole solution for enticing great teachers to CMS. North Carolina's low pay scale threatens to undermine the best efforts,  he said:  "We can't be $10,000 below the national average and think the opportunity culture is going to solve that."  Morrison is among many voices calling for a sustained statewide effort to make teaching a higher paid, better respected profession in North Caroilna.

Walk in, walk out or neither?

The Nov. 4 date for a N.C. teacher walk-out and/or community walk-ins to support public education is near. So what's going to happen?

I'm not getting any sense that there will be a big wave of "blue flu"  (or whatever the educational equivalent might be),  let alone an actual walk-out.  As I've written before,  it's risky business for teachers to take such a step,  and a lot of them are as unwilling to deprive their kids of classroom time as they are eager to make a point about pay and working conditions.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools decided not to join Iredell-Statesville in holding a districtwide  "walk-in"  to show support for educators.  CMS will hold educator appreciation events later this month,  while letting individual schools decide whether to mark Nov. 4,  spokeswoman Tahira Stalberte said.

I've heard that parents at Elizabeth Lane Elementary in Matthews are planning a festive welcome and breakfast for their teachers on Monday,  and that Ranson Middle School,  the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Association of Educators and Project LIFT are planning events at the north Charlotte school.  And I'm guessing plenty of people will go with a  "wear red for public ed"  show of support.

Update: Teachers at Northwest School of the Arts are planning a day of silence. "Teachers will still be at school and will perform their duties, but they will do it without a voice,"  says a post on a Northwest protest Facebook page.  "On Monday many teachers will be using worksheet packets to help students review. They hope to show the public that (1) their voices are not being heard, (2) classrooms will be silent when the teachers leave the profession, and (3) we must support our highly qualified teachers."  The teachers are also asking parents and other supporters to join them outside the school before and after school hours  "to show support and unity."

Another update:  My colleague Tim Funk just shared a statement from the offices of N.C. Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and Sen. Neal Hunt calling on state Attorney General Roy Cooper to  "protect our children's safety" during this  "planned teachers strike."

The Berger/Hunt statement says that  "the North Carolina affiliate of the national teachers’ union has stated on record they  'affirm the desire, and right, of educators to use tactics like a walk-out or strike' – a clear violation of North Carolina law."  The link leads to the N.C. Association of Educators site,  but with an  "Oops ... Page Not Found"  message.  Meanwhile,  the only thing I can find on the NCAE site is the statement they posted several weeks ago saying the group does not endorse the walkout.

What else are the rest of you hearing?