Attracting and Retaining Teachers in Rural Areas.

Although the problem varies across the United States, overall there is a shortage of rural teachers, especially in the subject areas of math, science, and special education. Recruiting teachers for rural settings requires targeting persons with rural backgrounds, attacking the negative stereotypes surrounding rural schools, and stressing the benefits of teaching in rural schools. Institutions of higher education could help recruit teachers for rural areas by encouraging students to visit rural districts, posting job openings, selling the positive aspects of rural teaching, inviting rural educators to be guest lecturers, providing rural internships, increasing interaction with rural personnel directors, preparing for teaching in multiple subject areas, sponsoring recruiting fairs, offering masters degree programs through summer school, and preparing teachers to direct extracurricular activities. Retaining rural teachers requires the coordinated effort of the school and the community. The community can recognize new teachers' accomplishments and invite them to local activities. The school can ease the transition of new teachers by assigning mentors, providing administrative contact and support, providing frequent inservice programs, providing release time for inservice and professional development activities, streamlining paperwork, offering orientation programs, locating adequate housing, providing merit increases for exceptional performance, and establishing the support of the school board. (Contains 29 references and 3 tables.) (TD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ATTRACTING AND RETAINING TEACHERS IN RURAL AREAS BY HOBART L. HARMON, Ph.D. EDUCATION CONSULTANT 3699 RICHARDSON ROAD TIMBERVILLE, VA 22853 E-MAIL: hharmon@shentel.net 1 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 14 document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating a. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality Points of clew or opinions stated in this docu meet do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONALRESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Paper presented at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education's 53rd Annual Meeting and Exhibits Hyatt Regency Dallas Dallas, Texas BEST COPY AVAILABLE March 2, 2001