Teaching with an arrest record but no conviction? (masters degree, bachelors, masters)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
In my district, I'm not sure that the OP's transgression would have gotten through the legal check that was done by the local or state police (can't remember which). Let's say it did. Given two candidates of otherwise fairly equal qualifications, why would I pick the candidate who had violated the law?
Just because someone is arrested doesn't mean they have broken the law. They are innocent until they are convicted in court. So if the OP was never convicted of a crime, then he has no criminal record and you can't claim that he broke any law just because he was arrested.
Also, not paying a speeding ticket wouldn't affect your ability to get a job as long as you eventually paid it.
In my state, getting a DUI (Driving while intoxicated) is the problem for teachers. You can't teach for 7 years after a DUI. But traffic tickets, parking tickets, speeding....no, these don't affect someone getting a job as a teacher (or probably most other types of jobs).
You should know the jobs usually don't go to the best candidates anyway; it's simply those who are "connected" who most likely get the teaching jobs.
.
This is the truth in most fields. Those who are connected are more likely to get jobs - with or without an arrest record.
Maybe that's how it is in some parts of the US, but here it is an absolute requirement, as much as having state certification. This is not even hidden and many personnel have the same last names.
In my experience, this is a very real factor in tiny districts in tiny communities. Otherwise, not so much. Small towns/districts, yes, absolutely. I've been on those hiring teams.
Just because someone is arrested doesn't mean they have broken the law. They are innocent until they are convicted in court. So if the OP was never convicted of a crime, then he has no criminal record and you can't claim that he broke any law just because he was arrested.
You need to go back and read the original post. He admitted that he broke the law.
In my experience, this is a very real factor in tiny districts in tiny communities. Otherwise, not so much. Small towns/districts, yes, absolutely. I've been on those hiring teams.
This is only one of many threads about this topic on the long island forum, the Westchester forum, the NJ forums, and the NYC forums. Unfortunately, it's been this way since the 1970s since we have stagnant growth. You are not from here so you are not familiar with the culture. It's not just teachers. It's any public service type of job. Even on this forum, if you do a search for teaching jobs on Long Island, you will read posters making the same complaint. But there are more threads on this topic in the CD specific state/city forums. It's one of the most competitive areas here for kids from cultures where the parents push their kids very hard to achieve. While teachers no longer have the security and excellent benefits that they used to have, in today's employment climate, everyone wants one of these jobs. There is also a lot of drama here on the political front, which has a lot to do with hiring. Please do not apply your experiences from upstate NY or your current location because it doesn't work the same way here. Husbands and wives, mothers and daughters frequently work in the same district, let alone school. It's not hidden one bit. There is no space on the application for the "do you have any relatives working in this district or is a member of the school board" as there are on applications for teaching jobs in other areas. If you have any doubts, you can just poke around on CD or look for newspaper articles on the subject.
And I am not suggesting that they hire incompetent people. Not at all. But almost everyone has a relative either in the same district or in another Long Island district. Just a few months ago, an elementary principal in Baldwin and I were swapping stories and he told me about his wife working in the city. He told me how he had tried for years to get her a job on Long Island, but couldn't do it until he became the principal of an elementary school. She teaches in the same district now, but in another school. BTW, this story was not told to me privately or in any type of confidence.
There are similar threads in the NJ, Westchester, and NYC forums and people have the same complaints about getting hired as a cop or subway worker or Long Island Railroad worker because these are all highly desirable high paying jobs that still offer a real pension, full medical, etc. And it seems the only way in is through a very, very close connection.//www.city-data.com/forum/long-...ired-long.html
This is only one of many threads about this topic on the long island forum, the Westchester forum, the NJ forums, and the NYC forums. Unfortunately, it's been this way since the 1970s since we have stagnant growth. You are not from here so you are not familiar with the culture. It's not just teachers. It's any public service type of job. Even on this forum, if you do a search for teaching jobs on Long Island, you will read posters making the same complaint. But there are more threads on this topic in the CD specific state/city forums. It's one of the most competitive areas here for kids from cultures where the parents push their kids very hard to achieve. While teachers no longer have the security and excellent benefits that they used to have, in today's employment climate, everyone wants one of these jobs. There is also a lot of drama here on the political front, which has a lot to do with hiring. Please do not apply your experiences from upstate NY or your current location because it doesn't work the same way here. Husbands and wives, mothers and daughters frequently work in the same district, let alone school. It's not hidden one bit. There is no space on the application for the "do you have any relatives working in this district or is a member of the school board" as there are on applications for teaching jobs in other areas. If you have any doubts, you can just poke around on CD or look for newspaper articles on the subject.
And I am not suggesting that they hire incompetent people. Not at all. But almost everyone has a relative either in the same district or in another Long Island district. Just a few months ago, an elementary principal in Baldwin and I were swapping stories and he told me about his wife working in the city. He told me how he had tried for years to get her a job on Long Island, but couldn't do it until he became the principal of an elementary school. She teaches in the same district now, but in another school. BTW, this story was not told to me privately or in any type of confidence.
There are similar threads in the NJ, Westchester, and NYC forums and people have the same complaints about getting hired as a cop or subway worker or Long Island Railroad worker because these are all highly desirable high paying jobs that still offer a real pension, full medical, etc. And it seems the only way in is through a very, very close connection.//www.city-data.com/forum/long-...ired-long.html
In your post that I responded to you said, "It's a requirement".
I remain highly skeptical that getting a job in your area has such "a requirement", or even that in a middle school of say 80 teachers, that all of those teachers had connections in order to get their jobs.
I'm going to give the example of myself when I had applied for my first assistant principalship. The principal selected me and got blowback from the assistant superintendent who wanted someone else hired. The principal dug in his heels and refused to hire anyone else. Finally the assistant superintendent relented and I got the job. In between, the job remained vacant for over 2 months. When I finally got the job, people kept saying how clear it was that I had "connections". Well, I didn't. I'd never met that principal before in my life. After working with him for 5 years, not once did any of the people I knew to any extent ever turn out to know that principal. Plus, I didn't know anyone in the upper administration. I was fairly new to the district and had no connections. And yet for years those rumors went on that I had "connections". While it can and does happen, most of the times the belief that someone got the job due to connections is just sour grapes used to make the person who didn't get the job feel better.
There are over 900 teachers in the Westchester school district, with about 64% holding master's degrees (which is higher than the national average). You're telling me that 900 of those teachers all had connections. No. Just no.
I'm not going to continue this after this post. I'm telling you I do not believe it, despite your anecdotes to the contrary. But I understand that you have a right to your opinion.
You can check out the other posts and research some newspapers to see that it is not exclusively "opinion." You do not live here. You are just using your "opinion" based upon your own experience from a different part of the country. That is hardly evidence and I guess you didn't bother reading the posts from CD that I provided. There is no such district as "Westchester School District." Westchester is a county in New York State, which has multiple independent school districts. Go read up about Kyras Joel and East Ramapo. On Long Island, you can look at the names of teachers throughout the districts to find that many have the same last names. You have to remember that Long Island has a history of political corruption and is home to the Gotti family. Our town executive (the equivalent of "mayor" of one million people) was finally indicted a few months ago for improprieties that were well-known for years. But he is still in office as well as his cohorts who were also indicted. It's just the way it is here.
I will share my own anecdote. Years ago, I applied to work as an aid in an elementary school. When I got called for the interview, I was told that there were hundreds of applicants. The principal stated that he recognized my last name and asked if I knew so and so. Turns out that he had been my cousin's 6th grade teacher before he came to this district to become a principal. He also knew my uncle-in-law who taught driver's ed. I got the job even though at the time I had never been an elementary school aide before. I was assigned to sometimes help out a first grade teacher. This first grade teacher was married to the band teacher in the same district, but at another school. The superintendent's secretary had a daughter who was also a first grade teacher at this school. The custodian had his young son working at an entry level low paying job as a cleaner. The second grade teacher's sister-in-law was the curriculum coordinator. And there were others who had relatives or in-laws who worked at other neighboring districts.
It really isn't all that incredulous. Many families consist of family members who follow in their parents' footsteps. It's pretty much the same with cops. Kind of like the show Blue Bloods. I am not suggesting that any of these school employees are lacking the required credentials for their jobs, nor am I suggesting that they lack competence. At the school that I described, IMO, everyone there was a dedicated worker and I would have welcomed them to have been my own children's teachers. What I am stating is that if you are an outsider and wish to teach in my local area, it is a requirement to have a strong connection to get hired. If you are a qualified candidate competing against other qualified candidates with a strong connection, usually through blood in some fashion, that's the person who will be hired. With the declining enrollment, and as mentioned in one of the threads that I posted, the cranking out of new grads from the concentration of the many local universities with a teacher preparation program in the area, the previously stated high compensation for this field, there is no shortage of people trying to get a job in the local public schools. From this large pool of people, only those with a strong connection will be seriously considered for one of relatively small number of vacancies.
If the scenario that you described above had happened here, no one would "accuse" you in a negative fashion of having some sort of "in" to get the job. It would be expected that you did know someone and it would not be held against you. What I have been suggesting is that if you are an outsider, without some sort of family tie in one of the local districts, your chances of getting the job is zip. Now 40-60 years ago, when the area was growing, schools were being built, most residents were young families, then the hiring field was wide open. It seems to be this way NOW in certain parts of the US, where there are new young families moving into brand new subdivisions. Our population, for the most part, is older and we don't have a lot of new homes and certainly no new school buildings.
Others here have expressed their frustrations http://[domain blocked due to sp...HTFCJKUSBNJ51N
I also found articles in Newsday, validating what I have been stating, but without a subscription, you wouldn't be able to read them.
And now, let's get back to the original topic of the thread.
Last edited by Coney; 02-07-2017 at 05:48 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
