Relocating from Iowa to Texas-teaching job (Dallas, Fort Worth: house, teaching jobs, school districts)

[mindgie]

My family and I will be relocating to Fort Worth area from Iowa. My children attend great public schools here and we would love to find an area known for the school district. I have a degree in elem. educ. with a reading endorsement and will be looking for a teaching job, how competitive or how hard would it be for me to find one???
My husband would be attending Univ. of texas at Dallas. We could spend up to $160,000 on a home. Any suggestions on family friendly affordable area with good schools would be greatly appreciated!

[loves2read]

run a search on the FTW and Dallas forum for teaching jobs and you will get lots of hits--some of them will have links to info about out of state credentials getting TX certification -- most teachers around here are required to have an ESL endorsement as well--
you can be hired without the ESL but frankly your chances of being hired without the state certification are much more slim--

frankly your area of teaching is very competitive-you will need to start on getting your out of state credentials certified in TX before you come

if your husband is going to be at UT-D you will probably want to live on the Dallas side of the metroplex for better travel time

I will PM you an MLS site that has great organization and maps
you can search for homes in your price range to see what is out there in different areas
frankly that much money is not "that much" in the metroplex--
I would say that your choices pretty much means newer suburban tract home or older, smaller home but I live on the Tarrant side and am basing my POV on what I see around me here

PS==be aware that in TX--a school district's boundaries can range over 2-3 towns and even 2 counties at times
and some towns can have 2-3-4 school districts within their boundaries
so don't assume that because you are looking at house in say Richarson or Plano that it automatically is IN that ISD...

TEA divides their educational system into regions--Region X is Dallas area
you can google the web site--there is map/list with all region X isds--and also link to jobs board
schools are starting to do their budgets (bad news for next year), submit contracts for returning teachers, and then will do #s for next year---
last year the hiring was so bad that many districts did not hold their own job fairs
there is large job fair in Arlington (between Dallas and FTW) that many districts have reps to--the date has been posted and you can send in your registration request
but it is difficult to get a true face to face interview unless your qualifications are really highly desired--that usually means math/science/special ed/ and lately I have seen Spanish certifications ...


TEA rates schools based on TAKS performance and other factors (% of teachers being "certified" is one factor which is why principals don't like to hire teachers who aren't
exemplary, recognized, acceptable, unacceptable are the top/bottom rankings of schools/districts...
much easier for elementary school to achieve exemplary--more difficult for middle schools--almost impossible for high schools...
so if you see home in area with middle school rated exemplary that is good teaching and/or pretty homogeneous student body with good abilities and support...

good luck...