Charter School Growth Results in Hundreds of Job Openings for Teachers: Charter Schools Job Fair Expected to Draw Huge Crowd
LANSING, Michigan (April 24, 2012) – There are hundreds of job openings for teachers at Michigan’s charter schools – and many of those people will be meeting with their prospective new employers at the annual Michigan Charter Public Schools Job Fair, which takes place Saturday at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi.
The Michigan Charter Public Schools Job Fair runs from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday at the Suburban Collection Showplace, located at 46100 Grand River Ave. in Novi. The event is sponsored by the Michigan Association of Public School Academies (MAPSA), the state’s charter school association.
There will be 65 booths at the Job Fair representing dozens of charter schools and other hiring organizations across the state – all hoping to fill hundreds of teaching openings and other positions for the coming school year. The Job Fair is expected to draw more than 500 teachers and other educators. There are jobs available for every teaching subject and every class level from K-12, as well as administrative and other positions. The majority of schools at the Job Fair will be from Detroit and southeastern Michigan.
“Thanks to the growth of charter schools in the state, we’re going to be able to keep hundreds more of our most talented teachers in Michigan,” said Dan Quisenberry, President of MAPSA. “That’s so important to the overall health of our state. As they’ll discover, there are so many benefits to teaching at a charter school. Our teachers enjoy great flexibility and the ability to innovate, and they’re able to work with the staffs in their own buildings to make the changes that will benefit their students. It’s an enriching and stimulating academic environment.”
Michigan’s network of charter schools continues to grow (there are currently 255 of them across the state), as legislation was signed into law in December that lifts the cap on the number of university-authorized charter schools allowed in the state. More than 15 new charter schools are expected to open across the state this fall, and many of them will be at Saturday’s Job Fair, hoping to fill teaching positions and other jobs for the coming school year.
Other existing charter schools are experiencing growth as they add grades or grow their enrollment (more than 60 percent of charter schools in the state have waiting lists). With those new students comes the need to fill teaching and other positions.
In Detroit, for example, the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy will be doubling the size of its student body this fall. The charter high school opened in September of 2011 with a ninth-grade class of 120, and the school will be adding another 120 students this fall as it expands to 10th grade. The Jalen Rose Leadership Academy will be one of the schools in attendance at Saturday’s Job Fair, looking to fill openings in every subject area as it expands its teaching staff.
The Michigan Association of Public School Academies (MAPSA) advances quality education through choice and innovation. MAPSA has been the unified voice of the public charter school movement in Michigan since 1996. MAPSA represents more than 110,000 students, 5,000 teachers, dozens of authorizers and more than 50 education service providers working in 255 public charter schools in the state. MAPSA assists the state’s public charter schools in their mission to deliver achievement, choice and accountability through advocacy, communications, technical assistance and professional development services. For additional information, please visit www.charterschools.org.
