BOE approves new recruiter

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau

LIHU'E, Kaua'i — The state Board of Education yesterday authorized the hiring of a new head-hunter firm to bring more special education teachers into the state school system.

The board will pay the firm Teachers-Teachers.com $4,000 for every qualified special education teacher hired as a regular Department of Education employee. There will be no fee for teachers referred but not hired.

Under the Felix Consent Decree, the Department of Education is required to have at least 90 percent of its special education teacher positions filled with teachers licensed or trained in special education. Because the department was unable to fill that many spots with qualified teachers — particularly in rural and Neighbor Island schools — it has used another headhunting firm, Columbus Educational Services, under a different arrangement.

Columbus is paid about $100,000 per teacher per year, from which Columbus hires and pays the teacher. That is far more than it costs the Department of Education to hire a special education teacher directly, said Claudia Chun, assistant superintendent of the schools department's office of human resources.

Even with the $4,000 per-teacher fee to Teachers-Teachers, the education department would see a savings compared with the cost of a teacher hired through the Columbus system, she said.

Schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto said the department now has 150 Columbus teachers on staff, down from 219. She said the department hopes to cut the 150 to 75 by next year, and to possibly cut it further the year after.

Teachers-Teachers is a Maryland firm. Its contract with the Department of Education runs through June 30, 2004. The firm is required to recruit, screen and then refer candidates to the state.