Date of Award
2003
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Fischler Graduate School of Education and Human Services
Advisor
James Ann Lynch
Committee Member
Michael Griffin
Committee Member
Barbara Packer
Keywords
affirmative action, college recruitment, diversity, elementary secondary education, ethnic diversity, Henry County, human resources, minority applicant pool, minority group teachers, minority hiring, minority students, minority teacher candidates, minority teacher recruitment, personnel departments, recruitment strategies, school demographics, teacher induction program, teacher recruitment, teacher retention, traditional recruiting practices, universities, workforce diversity
Abstract
Despite positional and empirical literature documenting the benefits of having sufficient representation of ethnically diverse teachers serving in schools where there are significant numbers of minority students, a gap continued to exist in Henry County Schools between these two segments of its school population. Additionally, census data indicated that Henry County’s explosive growth was having dramatic effects on the demographics of the school system.
Although traditional recruiting activities had aided the personnel department with overall staffing needs, human resource professionals in private and public domains were espousing a more individualized on-campus recruiting approach to help in critical areas. This study examined the effects of an individualized focused recruiting intervention on increased minority hiring for the 2003-2004 school year when said activities were conducted at minority-rich colleges and universities.
The researcher arranged visitations to selected college campuses and conducted individualized recruiting interviews with minority teacher candidates. A specific protocol for the interview was carried out that included dynamic discourse between the recruiter and the candidate and a multimedia presentation designed to highlight various selling points of the school system. A pre- and postsurvey were conducted to assess the effect of the program on students’ subsequent career decisions.
Immediately following the 2003-2004 Teacher Induction Program (TIP), data were gathered from various in-system reporting sources and during the TIP to determine accurately the percentages of new teachers hired as a result of the new intervention as compared with the numbers of new minority teachers hired from the traditional recruiting practices. Results indicate that this recruiting intervention helped to increase the minority applicant pool and assisted the personnel department in hiring a small number of new minority teachers.