Lincoln Public Schools holds interview fair to recruit prospective educators

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Lincoln Public Schools held a teacher interview fair Friday in their search for prospective educators.

Director of Recruitment Erik Witt says student teachers are vital to LPS and its students.

Those student teachers are already familiar with the district’s buildings and systems, so Witt says it makes the process more efficient.

With the shortage of teaching candidates across the US, Witt said they are looking to hire candidates throughout the school year to prevent a shortage of teachers here in Lincoln.

“We really want to connect with the best candidates possible, lock them into positions, so that they’re able to experience the remainder of their student teaching focused on continuing to improve their craft and know they have a position in place,” Witt said.

Witt says the district is focusing on student teachers who have been working since the start of this school year in August.

They hope to get those teachers set up with a job as soon as they graduate.

Officials also shared that LPS is the highest-paying district in Nebraska.

They said that new teachers, such as student teachers with no experience and a bachelor’s degree, can start with a salary of $47,056.

Faculty have been working with student teachers to prepare them for this event and ensure they get hired.

One student teacher, Nicole Peterson, talked about the symposium LPS held to give them practice for these interviews.

“They kind of talked about what we need to do to prepare for today, making sure that my resume was updated and ready to go,” she said. “I have family in education too, so I kind of always grew up in that environment and I’ve pretty much always wanted to be a teacher.”

Student teachers met with principals and administrators from across the district for their interviews but didn’t exactly know what position they’d be filling if they were hired.

Jessica Jensen, another student teacher, said she enjoys the mystery of not knowing exactly where she’ll be working.

“I think it overall went pretty well, I was very nervous.,” Jensen said. “To prepare for the interview I talked with my cooperating teacher about perhaps what questions they were going to ask me, wrote out some paragraphs to some hypothetical questions and practiced those a few times to feel comfortable at them, like my elevator pitch of who am I and why am I here?”

LPS said this and future events will help them to build a pipeline of future educators.