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Hall Monitor - Educate 210 teachers at a mixer at the Pearl | San Antonio Charter Moms

Teachers mix with local entrepreneurs at an Educate 210 event in April (courtesy photo)

It's not uncommon to run across yoga groups on the Hays Street Span, but there will be something actress special about ane on August 7. Mobile Om will be hosting a special yoga class, specially for teachers. The monthly yoga outcome will give teachers a take chances to network, and introduce them to some of the city'due south hippest locales, like Confluence Park, Freight (an fine art gallery), and the Pearl.

The events are hosted in partnership with Educate 210, a project funded by City Education Partners (CEP). The initiative is part friction match maker, office perks program. It helps local school districts and charter schools recruit teachers, and, once a instructor is hired, provides moving stipends, housing discounts, and perks to local coffee shops, yoga studios, museums, and restaurants.

CEP hopes the gilded recruitment strategy and professional community building will transport a statement: San Antonio is a great place to grow a teaching career.

1 of the education nonprofit's goals is to recruit teachers to San Antonio. Teacher shortages beyond the land are felt drastically by loftier poverty urban districts and charter networks, and teachers across the urban center are part of the nationwide struggle to raise the profile of the teaching career. Educate 210 is designed to speak to both of those challenges.

Classrooms in high poverty schools are tough, and teachers rarely stay long. Those same districts aren't always the first finish for local task-seekers. They demand a wider net.

It can be hard to recruit from outside the city because of the cost. Educate 210 flies candidates in for their interviews, puts them up at a hotel—Hotel Emma, at that—and, if the match is made, pays the instructor a relocation stipend.

"It'due south inverse the game in how I'm able to recruit," said Ray Tijerina, director of special projects at Compass Rose Academy, a lease school on San Antonio'due south Southside.

With the region, state, and country to choose from, districts and charter networks take admission to candidates they might have missed out on before.

Hall Monitor - Educate 210 teachers at a mixer at the Pearl | San Antonio Charter Moms

Erika Cruz (left) was hired past KIPP Camino through Brainwash 210 (courtesy photo)

Candidates similar Erika Cruz.

Cruz had always loved the idea of living in San Antonio. "The city itself is so total of life, so upbeat," Cruz said. But living and didactics in Fort Worth, she didn't take the time to exercise serious task and housing research during the prime hiring periods for new teachers.

Brainwash 210 made the search easier. She matched with 1 schoolhouse, but didn't ultimately get that job. But Brainwash 210 had a backup plan for her. While she was here, she attended a hiring fair hosted by the organization, and there she met KIPP Camino. The position they had available was perfect for her, she said. She'll start her task as a 7th grade reading teacher in September.

The fact that Cruz's first match through the organisation didn't piece of work out isn't a setback for Brainwash 210, CEP'southward director of strategic initiatives Rachel Mercer-Smith said. In fact, information technology proves the value of a one-end-hiring platform.

"The goal is to go people here," Mercer-Smith said.

Schools tin can besides take advantage of the program to facilitate recruitment of a candidate they've already met. Paul Morrissey of Compass Rose knew that he wanted to hire Peter Uwalaka to atomic number 82 his school. Uwalaka was working in Houston, and he had a long resume of only the kind of success Morrissey is looking to recreate at Compass Rose.

Hall Monitor - Educate 210 teachers at a mixer at the Pearl | San Antonio Charter Moms

From left: Ray Tijerina, CEP Executive Manager Joel Harris, and Peter Uwalaka (courtesy photo)

Morrissey encouraged Uwalaka to sign upward for Educate 210, which and then paid for him to fly in and interview at Compass Rose. They scheduled the interview during Fiesta calendar week, along with about 45 other Educate 210 candidates. CEP hosted mixers, put the candidates up at Hotel Emma, and introduced them to the metropolis. Coming to an event similar this did more than than but wine and dine Uwalaka. Rather, it proved what Tijerina and Morrissey had been telling him: San Antonio is a identify you tin grow your career. It gave him a snapshot of the movement he would be part of, he said. It's a broader movement that Morrissey and Tijerina both value.

"I believe San Antonio is condign what educational activity reform is supposed to look like," Tijerina said.

Now, as a schoolhouse leader, Uwalaka plans to apply the service himself to recruit. "I see Brainwash 210 as a conduit to get the all-time people in our schools to serve our kids," he said.

Mercer-Smith would like to encounter more schoolhouse districts using Educate 210 to recruit. Right now, nineteen of the 55 teachers hired through Educate 210 are going to lease schools.Thirty-six were hired by San Antonio ISD, but 28 are going to Relay Lab Schools and Relay Graduate Schoolhouse of Pedagogy in San Antonio ISD, initiatives likewise supported by CEP.

Programs like this entreatment to charter schools, Mercer-Smith said, in function considering they have to do more recruiting. Teachers interested in living in San Antonio typically know how to discover their way to the school districts, while charters have to advertise a little more.

San Antonio ISD, Edgewood ISD, and S San Antonio ISD take also signed on to work with Educate 210. All three are members of usa Organization of Great Schools network, significant that their campuses will take more autonomy, and principals will take to hunt for talent.

What may get more than teachers and fifty-fifty districts on board are the perks. Teachers sacrifice a lot for their students, and their pay scale doesn't always reverberate their value. Mercer-Smith and her team at Educate 210 are hoping that information technology tin can offer a little bit of rockstar treatment experienced by recruits in other fields. When a young talent hits the market in, say, tech or finance, they get the VIP treatment. Housing discounts in prime number markets, and discounts at swanky java shops and restaurants are meant to requite teachers a some of that professional courtship.

Local teachers looking for a change in employment are encouraged to employ the platform every bit well, and the perks aren't limited to those hired using the Educate 210 platform. The perks are for every teacher, Mercer-Smith explained, because every instructor deserves it.

Originally published as "Educate 210 aims to give teachers VIP access to San Antonio,"Hall Monitor, August 6, 2018

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