Whitfield County Schools seeks employees at job fair

Published 2:00 pm Monday, February 28, 2022

Whitfield County Schools “is a great district with amazing teachers — I see principals and assistant principals I had as teachers — who truly care, and curriculum that’s well thought-out,” said Katherine Head, a senior at the University of North Georgia in Dahlonega and a graduate of schools in the Whitfield school system.

As “I reflect on the teachers I had, they are the reason I am who I am today.”

Head was one of several applicants at a recent jobs fair for Whitfield County Schools at the Northwest Georgia College & Career Academy. In addition to teaching positions, candidates could interview for roles ranging from work in School Nutrition and transportation to being a paraprofessional.

This was the first large in-person recruitment fair hosted by the school system in a couple of years due to COVID-19, and the difference was obvious, said Deputy Superintendent Karey Williams.

“I can’t think of anything more important to be face-to-face than an interview.”

“The interaction between people is so valuable,” she said. “You see a truer personality face-to-face.”

Head will graduate in May with a dual certification in elementary education and special education, and she’d like to teach where she was born and raised.

“I fell in love with teaching,” she said. “Seeing (the) faces (of students) light up when they ‘get it,’ and letting them know someone is there for them, that makes it all worth it.”

Baillie Godfrey’s most “consistent” teacher was her band director, and “I want to be that consistent person for my students,” said the senior at Young Harris College who grew up in Blue Ridge, attended schools in the Fannin County Schools system and applied for a middle school band director position Saturday. “My student-teacher in Gilmer (County) spoke highly of Whitfield County Schools and said it was a good place I should apply.”

Also aiming for a middle school band director role was Wimberly Kennedy, who currently directs middle school band at a Montessori Academy in Savannah but is from Dalton and “trying to get back.”

“I want to be closer to family and find a place I can stay,” she said. “I want a (band program) where students can feel safe and enjoy making music.”

“This is what I’ve wanted to do since I was 12, so it’s a consistent pattern,” she added. “I enjoyed (band) in middle school, high school and college, and I continued with a summer program to help middle-schoolers with music.”

“In general, people are not choosing teaching as a profession” as much as they once did, with elementary education now a “shortage area for the first time,” according to Sharon Hixon, dean of the School of Education at Dalton State College. It’s a “crisis for us.”

“We are in a pinch,” Williams said. “If we didn’t have Dalton State in our community” as a feeder for educators, “we would not be doing well.”

“It’s hard to find math and science teachers” in particular, said Hixon. Often, students who major in math or science are “lured away by bigger paychecks” in more lucrative fields than education.

Whitfield County Schools will have at least eight openings for high school math for 2022-23, said Williams.

“We also have some (special education) positions we’ve had open since August.”

However, “we’ve had some good candidates, so we’re very optimistic,” Williams said. With candidates, “we try to emphasize the support we provide teachers new to our district.”

“We have lots of resources, professional development, mentoring and support for them at the school and district level,” she said. “We want to smooth the process out for them.”