Cable Access & the School Board

Some tidbits from watching the school board meeting last night on HCN:
The county has a 90.7% teacher retention rate, one of the highest in the state.
However, they're not as highly ranked for "highly qualified teachers." They've been recruiting in NJ to find teachers, with a focus on finding more minority teachers and male teachers.
Higher ed qualifications for teachers break down like this:
68.7% with bachelor's degree
31.7% masters
.3% doctorates.
One of the board members asked the administrators presenting the data if highly qualified teachers were placed in schools that needed help.
No.
Of course, the long answer was that highly qualified teachers are sought after by more than one principal and then the teacher gets to choose his/her placement.
Which might explain why 50 teachers, 17.8% left Edgewood High School last year, which was only a few percentage points behind Aberdeen in departing teachers.
The caveat with the highly qualified teachers discussion centered on long-term subs, and how these replacements might not be as highly qualified as their permanent counterparts. It made me think of how Edgewood High spent the first few months of the school year without a band director because theirs left for Patterson Mill.
The other interesting reason for lack of highly qualified teachers was that some teachers were actually certified, but their paperwork wasn't completed by the main office to reflect that.