NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The public schools are hoping to fill open positions throughout the district through a marketing campaign. 

 

School system currently has about 30 open full-time, part-time and stipend jobs open.

 

The district will also be working on morale building following a staff survey that found many teachers don't feel valued for their work. 

 

"One thing that we recently did is installed a billboard on Route 2 near Stop & Shop," said Emily Schiavoni, community outreach coordinator. "We also worked on our website in hopes that people would be able to easily find our job openings listed on our website. And we also purchased some social media marketing to advertise them."

 

She said, in response to questions, that the billboard probably cost less than $1,000 for the month.

 

Committee member David Sookey said he was glad to the social media advertisements. 

 

"I've seen the ads out there and I've seen people sharing it in groups and places like that," he said. "It's a great networking tool. I'm happy that we're jumping on that because there's more and more people looking that way when they're looking for another job."

 

Superintendent Barbara Malkas said the district would be tracking traffic to the website and social media metrics to determine if the campaign is working. Schiavoni said applicants are also asked where they heard about the jobs.

 

"If this strategy works, we may consider doing that again as we go look at the next hiring cycle for the next school year at a much earlier time," Malkas said.

 

The superintendent said "there's a lot of buzz" about what the district pays for certain positions and making sure potential candidates are aware of the benefits and insurance plans.

 

Malkas said she had tried college fairs but the remote events weren't very effective. She had only one candidate out of 100 after spending four hours in her office answering questions. 

 

"They have to also really want to live in Western Massachusetts. That's a major component of it," she said. 

 

Committee Vice Chair Richard Alcombright said he'd like to campaign build on the district's No. 1 bullet point — about making a difference in children's lives.

 

"Find ways to fund billboards that not only promote our employment opportunities, but our educational opportunities — Let's sell the district," he said. "This is the first thing we need. But let's find ways to really continue the marketing efforts through finding ways to sell the district to parents, students."

 

In regards to the survey, the teacher's union partnered with the district on the survey developed by EAB, an education consulting company.

 

Schiavoni, who was implementation lead, said the survey had an 80 percent participation rate and an overall score of 3.28 out of a possible 5.

 

The results were based on disagree and strongly disagree to each question: 46 percent felt they are not recognized for their efforts, 38 percent felt they weren't valued for their work as a teachers, 36 percent that their daily workload was not manageable and 31 percent that they had the resources and materials they needed. 

 

The process also included a number of meetings and focus groups, which informed the data used to develop strategies.

 

"So teachers feel supported by their colleagues, the families that they work with students and specifically the district literacy coordinator," said Schiavoni. "Teachers feel as though they lack personal check-ins from administrators. Teachers are overwhelmed and ... feel that their thoughts are not valued when it comes to professional development offerings. And that district leadership makes the decisions ahead of time without the input."

 

Proposed strategies were for purposeful and consistent communication and recognition kits;  and a social media campaign to highlight faculty and staff. 

 

The third strategy would be more in-depth and include reviewing teacher time requirements and reducing duplicative trainings and finding ways to give time back to teachers, as well as rethinking opening days to provide more preparation time. 

 

This strategy was voted as a priority by the teachers. 

 

"We also heard loud and clear through this data that teachers want district administrators in the building more which makes sense given the past two years where it's been COVID," Schiavoni said. "So that is definitely a goal for this coming year."

 

A subcommittee will take on these strategies, set benchmarks and do followup surveys. 

 

Malkas said the data made her reflect on the impact on adults during the pandemic, which forced schools and classes to remote participation for long stretches during the past two years. 

 

"I think that it's very healing for our school community to have the opportunity to see each other again," she said.