Harford County Public Schools hired 404 new employees in the past year, about 5 percent fewer than the year before, while the number of job applicants more than doubled.
That was one of two reports the Harford County Board of Education received as part of strategic goal updates during its regularly scheduled business meeting Monday evening.
Jean Mantegna, assistant superintendent for human resources, gave a presentation on recruitment and retention, telling board members about the human resources changes from Sept. 1, 2010 to Aug. 30, 2011. The school system hired 404 new employees, she said, roughly 5 percent fewer than last year, while the number of applications "more than doubled."
One goal they are working on, she added, was attracting and retaining a more diverse workforce for Harford County Public Schools.
In response to board member Joseph Hau's questions, Superintendent Robert Tomback mentioned the partnerships the school system had with various businesses to offer teachers discounted housing and gym memberships.
Leann Schubert, coordinator of school improvement, told the school board some of the results of the Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning Maryland Educator Survey, or TELL Survey, reporting that Harford County had an 80 percent response rate with at least a 50 percent response rate in every school. The TELL Survey asks participants to rate teaching conditions, including school leadership, community support and time allotted for instructional planning.
Because each school had a 50 percent or higher response rate, she added, the results of the TELL Survey are available online for analysis. At this point, schools can use the information when developing their school improvement plans for the upcoming year, Schubert said.
One of the highlights of the TELL Survey, she added, is that 57 percent of teachers said they felt comfortable raising concerns or issues to school leadership, an increase from the responses in 2009, but slightly less than the state average.
Other increases were also pointed out, including a more than 16 percent increase in teachers who said they receive helpful feedback and a more than 9 percent increase in responses that said school leadership clearly communicates expectations to students and parents.
Other Business
Based on Superintendent Robert Tomback's recommendation, the school board promoted Meridith Dunlap, a mentor at Edgewood Middle; Jacqueline Fisher, a mentor at William S. James Elementary; Kathleen Hobbs, a teacher specialist at Magnolia Elementary; and Harley Main, a fifth grade teacher at North Bend Elementary, to the elementary school assistant principal candidate pool.
The board also approved the minutes of previous meetings and monthly contract awards. Included in those contracts was $106,163.66 to Skyline Network Engineering, LLC, for the maintenance and service of video surveillance systems in Harford County Public Schools through July 30, 2012; another $148,583.67 to East Shore Sound for products and services to upgrade the auditorium sound system; and $263,301 to SunGard K-12 Education to purchase an upgrade for the Student Information System, which is required to monitor student information in accordance with federal regulations, such as the No Child Left Behind Act.
In his report, Tomback congratulated Fallston Middle School science teacher Jeana Essery for receiving the 2011 Outstanding Earth Science Teacher for Maryland from the National Association of Geoscience Teachers.
Tomback also mentioned two Harford Tech academic teams which made it to the semi-finals in the 2011 Maryland Cyber Challenge and Conference competition, which aims to make Maryland a leader in the cyber security field. One of the teams, Team Exploiters, qualified for the championship and will compete Oct. 21 and 22.