Upstate School Districts hosting Career Fair

A shortage of qualified teachers continues to be a problem for school districts across the country. Keeping teachers in the classroom for the next generation of students is a year round job, explains Earnestine Williams, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources for the School District of Oconee County (SDOC). “The hiring process is a year round process. So, while we do most of our hiring in the spring because teachers are making those decisions and we’re offering contracts, we’re reaching out to teachers, especially in critical need positions such as speech, special ed, math and science; those are positions that we’re looking for candidates all the time.” To address the shortage, the SDOC is partnering with other school districts in the Upstate to host a career fair, tells Williams. “One of the things that we are doing this year is in partnership with all the districts in the Upstate; Anderson Districts 1-5, Pickens and Greenville, we’re hosting an Upstate Career Fair on Saturday, Feb. 10, 2018. Its going to be at TL Hanna High School from 8am to 4:30pm. Its called the South Carolina Outreach for Upstate Teaching. We’re doing this together so that we can let folks know about the critical positions that we would like to fill in all of our districts. We will be highlighting things in the districts and we will have administrators and teachers on site to talk about our school districts but also to talk to anybody that is interested in teaching through alternative methods. So, we are going above and beyond just looking at folks that are coming out of a four-year educational program at colleges and universities but anybody that may have a four-year degree that would like to look at opportunities on how they can become teachers.” The South Carolina Outreach for Upstate Teaching career fair is open to anyone who may be interested in training to be a teacher.