Relocating from NC to Vancouver Area - Summer 21 (Longview, Salmon Creek: sales, apartment)

[DocVudu]

The post says it all. I'm a teacher, single parent, planning to relocate to the Vancouver (or surrounding area) sometime in the Summer of 2021. I plan to have about 15k saved up, hoping to rent a 2 bedroom apartment (average going rate I've seen is about 1200 a month). I'll be in my 6th year of teaching, along with 2 master's degrees so, based on salary schedules I've seen, I'll be okay as far as a salary goes (though, I'd be really appreciative if there's a teacher floating around out there in the area that could set me straight if I have some misconceptions). I guess, basically what I'm looking for is any information folks are willing to throw my way. I'm certified to teach High School English, Social Studies, 12th Grade AP Lit, and Special Education...so you know...if there's a principal out there that's gonna be looking about that time...

So yes, bombard me with information wonderful humans.

[Jane917]

Be aware, that many teachers have been let go in Clark County in the last few years, and hiring is not a frenzy. Your best bet might be in Special Education. Also check out ESD 112, the coop that serves some of the more rural districts. Make sure all your Washington certifications are obtained.

[DocVudu]

Any particular reason why they are letting teachers go?

[Gaylord_Focker]

Good luck Doc, may be joining you soon. Or maybe not as well.

[texasdiver]

Teacher here:

All the school districts in WA use the same online application process. You can track openings online and apply online. Your first step would be to acquire a WA teaching license which can be done online. The WA teacher certification exams can be done from your home state through the Kaplan test centers. I did mine in TX. You can start working on that now as the process takes some time.

Starting next Jan/Feb the first openings will start appearing but usually they don't really pick up until March. The cycle is basically the same everywhere. I did skype interviews when I landed a Vancouver-area teaching from Texas four years ago. There is probably some advantage to being local if they want you to do a trial lesson in a real class as some districts like to do. But in my case it wasn't 100% necessary.

The toughest districts to break into are those closest to Portland because a LOT of Vancouver area teachers commute up from Portland as it is an easy reverse commute. The further away you get (and the more rural) the more likely you'll be to find jobs and find yourself to be a competitive candidate. I would categorize the school districts as follows:

TOUGH (popular close-in districts)
Camas,
Vancouver
Evergreen

These encompass nine big comprehensive high schools and perhaps half a dozen smaller magnet schools of various flavors. Probably 75% of the students in the greater Vancouver area attend these districts. Teaching jobs are toughest to land because you have lots of competition from Portland area teachers and lots of local teachers in other districts want to transfer to these three because they generally pay more and are closer commutes. Vancouver used to do an in-person job fair in Feb and fill lots of its openings that way. I don't know if they still do that.

MEDIUM (more rural and/or less upscale districts)
Battle Ground
Washougal
Ridgefield
Hockinson

These are smaller districts that are a bit further out on the edge. Battle Ground has two high schools, the others just a single medium size high school each. Turnover is kind of hit and miss. The Ridgefield and Hockinson areas are growing the fastest and are most likely to have new openings. Battle Ground has traditionally been the toughest place to work of these four districts with lots of dysfunction and teacher unsatisfaction so that would probably be the easiest place to find openings but the worst place to work. They keep failing to pass bonds so schools are old and overcrowded.

EASIEST (furthest away and most rural)
La Center
Woodland
Kalama
Longview
Kelso
Stevenson.

These are mostly outside reasonable commuting distance from Portland so less competition for jobs. The furthest ones like Longview and Stevenson would be 1/2 hour commutes from the edge of the Vancouver area. You could live in the north Vancouver area of Salmon Creek or Ridgefield and easily commute to Longview. Or live in Washougal and commute to Stevenson. People do it. You can google map these. Longview is probably your best bet. It's a larger city about 35 miles north of the northern suburbs of Vancouver and a straight shot up the freeway so not an unreasonable place to work if you don't mind a 35-40 min freeway commute.

There are also a few private schools and online schools.

No one knows what hiring is going to be like next spring. There could be a lot of old teachers throw in the towel and decide they don't need to teach during a pandemic and that might create openings. On the other hand, the looming recession may slash education budgets to such an extent that districts can't do new hiring and just get by with larger class sizes and such. Who knows. We are in uncharted territory. Teaching jobs have never been really easy to find around here compared to say Texas. I don't know if the coming years are going to be worse or better.

Also, for what it's worth. Teaching jobs will be even TOUGHER on the Portland side. There are lots of colleges of education in the Portland area and an oversupply of teachers. Plus OR schools have been on worse financial footing than WA schools. Teaching jobs can be had in OR, but nowhere near Portland or any other town you'd want to live in (Bend, Eugene, Corvallis, etc.). You have to go way out to really rural areas to find openings. Way beyond commuting distance.

[DocVudu]

Thank you so much Texas, that's the kind of info I'm looking for.

Honestly, a long commute doesn't bother me. I'm in a small suburb of Greensboro NC now and comment 37 minutes to work each way, so a long commute wouldn't be anything strange. The districts that are and aren't worth looking into, that are likely to hire, etc, that's the kind of information I need to know.

Also, if you wouldn't mind, NC doesn't actually have a benefit for salary if you have a master's degree, etc. I currently have two, do you have an idea where that would classify me on the salary schedules (MA+45? MA+0), etc. Oh, and another thing, I noticed that Washington is unioned as far as teacher's go. Given that those are pretty much illegal in NC (Right to work state), how much do dues usually run, how much do they take out of paychecks on average, etc? I'm budgeting right now at 30% off take home, which is what it runs here, so I'm curious. Without getting into too many details of course.

Also, any of those little towns on the outskirts (i.e. Longview, etc) that I should avoid for fear of tweekers, zombies, velociraptors, and general rampant chaos?

Thank you again!

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by DocVudu

Thank you so much Texas, that's the kind of info I'm looking for.

Honestly, a long commute doesn't bother me. I'm in a small suburb of Greensboro NC now and comment 37 minutes to work each way, so a long commute wouldn't be anything strange. The districts that are and aren't worth looking into, that are likely to hire, etc, that's the kind of information I need to know.

Also, if you wouldn't mind, NC doesn't actually have a benefit for salary if you have a master's degree, etc. I currently have two, do you have an idea where that would classify me on the salary schedules (MA+45? MA+0), etc. Oh, and another thing, I noticed that Washington is unioned as far as teacher's go. Given that those are pretty much illegal in NC (Right to work state), how much do dues usually run, how much do they take out of paychecks on average, etc? I'm budgeting right now at 30% off take home, which is what it runs here, so I'm curious. Without getting into too many details of course.

Also, any of those little towns on the outskirts (i.e. Longview, etc) that I should avoid for fear of tweekers, zombies, velociraptors, and general rampant chaos?

Thank you again!

You can find the salary schedules on most district's web sites. The MA + is where you would be. You would have to add up how many semester hours of education you have past your MA. They do a 10 to 1 ratio for inservice teacher training to semester hours. So you would need 45 semester hours, or 450 hours of inservice teacher training to get to the MA +45 spot. The HR person at the district would look at your transcripts and count them up. Only inservice training done in WA counts so all those certificates you get over the years for training classes in NC will be useless. I had a ton of them for things like summer AP workshops in TX but none of them counted. Only WA clock hours.

As for tweakers and such. Yes, Longview has more of that. But the schools are still schools and the kids are still kids. I wouldn't chose to live there because it is boring, not because it is a hell hole. There are nice areas, but it is pretty blue collar.

There are no schools within an hour of Vancouver that I wouldn't teach at. Or for that matter, anywhere in WA. Some places are tougher than others of course. But you find good kids everywhere. If want to pick and choose only the most affluent and posh schools to work in then you probably shouldn't be in teaching. But you already know that. You can look up the Niche profiles of any schools you are interested in to see the demographics and student/parent comments. That usually gives you a sense of what you are dealing with.

[DocVudu]

I'm not worried about the kids, I work in a pretty large urban school at the moment and we have our gangs, and all that fun stuff. Those are the kids I actually get along with the best. I think I was more asking in regards to crime, property crime, etc.

To be fair, I'm a pretty blue collar guy, so blue collar is fine with me. Granted, I tend to lean more towards the left than the folks around here.

Okay, I didn't know about the inservice aspect. See, in NC, they don't give us anything past a bachelor's degree, unless we're National Board certified. I got lucky and got my first masters before the cut off date, so I got that bump, but nothing else for the second, or for the 20 or 30 hours I did towards a doctorate that I opted not to finish.

What about the union stuff? are there union dues?

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by DocVudu

I'm not worried about the kids, I work in a pretty large urban school at the moment and we have our gangs, and all that fun stuff. Those are the kids I actually get along with the best. I think I was more asking in regards to crime, property crime, etc.

To be fair, I'm a pretty blue collar guy, so blue collar is fine with me. Granted, I tend to lean more towards the left than the folks around here.

Okay, I didn't know about the inservice aspect. See, in NC, they don't give us anything past a bachelor's degree, unless we're National Board certified. I got lucky and got my first masters before the cut off date, so I got that bump, but nothing else for the second, or for the 20 or 30 hours I did towards a doctorate that I opted not to finish.

What about the union stuff? are there union dues?

WA has a statewide $5,500 salary bonus for being National Board Certified on top of your regular salary schedule. So most districts have some sort of training program to get you board certified.

The union stuff? I'd have to go back and look at my pay stubs. It's not a huge deduction. The pay jump from a non-union state more than makes up for it. WA also has a good 401(k) plan though the state itself that is super low fee. it's called the Deferred Compensation Plan. Surprisingly not all teachers know about it and many get sucked into high-fee variable annuities because the annuity sales vultures hang around schools and try to sell you on them: https://www.drs.wa.gov/dcp/

[DocVudu]

We get an 11% pay bump here, so starting teacher makes I believe....32k, so they get an extra three grand or so a year. To get to 50k here, you pretty much have to be in 10-12 years. As far as 401K, they just take 6% off the top.

From what you're telling me Texas, I'm leaning towards the right decision.

The schools pretty good with Special Education? My son is 12 and autistic, currently sitting at 80% resource, 20% regular classroom time.