Job Discussion Forums

[Hatcher]

They have an add on Chronicle.com and it states that they are looking for Jan and Sept of 09? Is that realistic? Dont they review over 3-4 months?

[helenl]

They do hire for the end of January (they have a two week break near the end of the month and start a new semester around the beginning of February)

Whether it's realistic is moot - if you're hired, you may be delayed in arriving due to the government paperwork required for visas etc.

Note: if you have school age children it may be impossible to get them into a decent or any school at that time of year.

[redsoxman]

There's a whole lot of paper work needed so make sure you have time for doing everything. That said, they often hire on short notice when they are desperate as there is a fairly high turnover in some of the colleges.
If you are assigned to a good college, stay put.

[redsoxman]

HCT seems to be rethinking their firing policies. You need a big budget to keep hiring and firing people. It costs to keep hiring new teachers, pay shipping & cargo and settling in allowances every year and then when teachers go they have to pay a lot out in gratuities. The best and most practical thing is to keep the staff you have. It's too bad that some good teachers have been fired. Why do management people think that firing is a good thing? It terrorizes staff and breeds a culture of fear. The culture of fear of being fired affects everyone, old and new. When people become paranoid because of stupid firing policies the result is they have no faith in management, then a culture of lack of trust is inevitably created. This has been going on at HCT for years but they are finally getting their act together and have realized how valuable teachers are. They are not gung ho on firing as much as they used to be. Getting rid of good teachers only gives a place a bad reputation and scares good teachers off.

[eha]

'...This has been going on at HCT for years but they are finally getting their act together and have realized how valuable teachers are....

If they have, that puts them at the forefront of the evolution of organizational thinking. No-one else seems to have realized any such thing! But it's a nice idea.....

[FatFreddieFoxx]

Interesting stuff, redsoxman. Do you have any inside info to back up your hunches? PLease share, if so!

When I was at HCT several teachers were fired (or 'let go', to be euphemistic) for the usual 'personality clash' reasons - usually with their Supervisors. However, a couple were ditched for quite trivial reasons (failing to grade 'properly', etc) which really soured the atmosphere in the whole place.

Curiously, whereas struggling students were given all the support God could possibly send, under-performing teachers were given a swift kick up the ass and shown the door. No attempt was ever made to 'counsel' them, or even to provide the most minimal support. Hypocrisy, really.

If the senior management have finally understood that sacking good teachers backfires, well hurrah! But I somehow doubt it. So show us your evidence, redsoxman!

[D. Merit]