Ways to recruit teachers

Sunday, March 22, 1998 | 9:32 a.m.

Clark County has devised some innovative ways to recruit teachers.

Among them:

* New programs. One initiative places bilingual adults into classrooms after 120 hours of training. The new teachers then promise to finish a master's degree at their own expense within three years. This is the first year of a similar program called the Urban Teaching Partnership Program. Beginning in July, about 55 people from various professions who want to teach will begin a year of course work, then plunge into teaching at Oran Gragson and Walter Bracken elementary schools and Eldorado High School.

* Technology. Officials use two websites to lure teachers. They call video-conferencing the wave of the future, and hope to interview as many as 300 prospective teachers nationwide this year through a television monitor.

* Personal recruiting. About 70 administrators will canvass the country in the next few months, targeting areas of 45 states with good teachers colleges. Officials have learned where to hunt. For instance, they say Pennsylvania tends to produce more teachers than the state has jobs. States like Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota are fertile ground for special education teachers. New Mexico is a good place to find bilingual teachers.

* In-house searches. The district now uses several programs that encourage teachers aides and other "support staff" to become full-fledged classroom teachers. Officials even target kids -- a new program called the Future Teachers Organization in middle schools is designed to identify early any students who eventually may want to teach.

* Welcome wagon. District officials try to make the transition to Las Vegas a little easier by holding mixers and offering survival guides on apartments, car loans, child care, turning on the power and obtaining a driver's license. They also try to get a veteran teacher and business person to at least call and check up on new teachers. New recruits get a new teacher newsletter.

District officials admit they will hard-sell Las Vegas any way they can.

"If there is an area that has had a really miserable winter, or is experiencing an economic downturn, we'll recruit there," the district's chief recruiter, George Ann Rice, said. "We're the fastest growing district in the nation. We have to be aggressive."