National Educator Initiative Project
Teacher shortages are pervasive in Native schools across the country. The National Indian Education Association (NIEA) and TNTP are working collaboratively to recruit and retain effective teachers and unleash the power of the seventh generation of Native students.
THE OPPORTUNITY. From big cities to the most remote villages, schools across the country are developing and implementing innovative, community-based strategies for solving their teacher pipeline challenges. Native schools demonstrate great potential for growth, yet rural isolation, small budgets, and low visibility on the job market hamper efforts to find new teachers and educators that will thrive in Native schools. NIEA launched the National Educator Initiative to share best practices and to create a first of its kind national recruitment website and job board designed specifically for Native schools.
WHAT WE’VE DONE SO FAR. We partnered with a Native design firm to create teach.niea.org, a website that highlights the benefits of working in Native schools and have enrolled public school districts, tribally-controlled schools, and the Bureau of Indian Education to post open teaching positions and search for applicants who are uniquely qualified for those roles.
By housing vacancies in Native schools in one place, we’re streamlining the job search for teachers who are interested in working in Native schools, reducing their time to apply, and opening the door to recruiting a new audience of teachers who hadn’t previously considered working in Native schools. For schools, we’re providing the chance to search for applicants by tribal affiliation, culture and language certification, and culturally-relevant teaching experience. And we conduct basic eligibility screens of teachers to check that they have appropriate certification. The National Educator Initiative job board currently comes at no cost to schools or teachers. Click below to visit the job board.
EXPANDING OUR WORK. We are in the midst of critical expansion to this initiative so that we can provide stronger supports for hiring for the 2020-2021 school year. In addition to growing the number of schools and teachers who are using the site, we’re making improvement to its functionality, developing a full suite of resources for principals and human resources staff, and planning for the long-term sustainability of this initiative.
To support us in reaching our goal to help improve education opportunities for Native students, encourage prospective teachers and community partners to visit our new Educator Initiative Job Board to post job positions in your schools or apply for currently available positions. Our new job board launched April 1, 2020, and has job postings from all around the country!
FIND OPPORTUNITIES. To upload your resume or search for open educator positions, please visit our website.
POST A POSITION. Are you interested in having job positions in your schools posted on our job board? Would you like more information about the initiative? Contact us today at teachnative@niea.org or 202-847-0034.
To learn more about the Initiative, including what we’ve done so far and how we’re expanding our work, please view our brand new one-pager.