Add theater to the list of subjects for which principals have been allowed to circumvent the city’s longstanding teacher hiring freeze.
The city allowed four principals to hire theater teachers from outside the school system last month, breaking from the hiring restrictions in place since May 2009 that limit most job searches to current city teachers.
The Center for Arts Education, a group that advocates for more arts instruction in the city’s public schools, released a statement cheering the city for opening hiring for theater teachers and calling on it to end the freeze for all arts teachers. The city has just 100 theater teachers, and 20 percent of schools have no arts teachers at all, according to CAE.
But city officials said the hiring freeze hasn’t been lifted in theater the way it has been in other subjects, such as Latin and English as a second language. Instead, the city simply granted exemptions to all of the schools looking for theater teachers in mid-September, according to Ann Forte, a Department of Education spokeswoman. At the time, there was just a single theater teacher in the Absent Teacher Reserve, the pool of excessed teachers to which principals are expected to look first when filling vacant positions, she said.
Currently, the city’s hiring system lists no open positions for theater teachers, Forte said.
There are currently 54 vacant positions for arts teachers, according to CAE’s statement. The city did not immediately respond to questions about how many arts teachers are in the ATR pool, but last fall, there were dozens.
Here’s the full statement from CAE policy director Doug Israel:
October 18, 2010 The city’s Department of Education has announced that the system-wide hiring freeze for New York City public schools has been lifted for theater teachers in order to fill current school-based vacancies. That’s great news. As the director of research and policy for The Center for Arts Education I have advocated on CAE’s behalf to lift this freeze as one of several means to ensure that city public schools have an adequate array of highly qualified arts instructors on staff. Since 2009 city schools have only been allowed to hire existing DOE teachers-either working in other schools or in excess in the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) pool-to fill vacancies. Principals will now be permitted to hire licensed theater teachers from outside the system to fill these slots. This is a welcome development as there are only approximately 100 theater teachers citywide and more than 1.1 million school children-a ratio of about 1 theater teacher for every 11,000 city students. There are currently four announced vacancies for theater teachers in city schools. Theater teachers licensed by the State of New York can apply for these positions by uploading relevant materials to the TeachNYC portal at: http://schools.nyc.gov/TeachNYC/apply/default.htm.We commend the DOE for responding to the recognized shortage of certified theater teachers by lifting the hiring freeze in this area. However, we are concerned that there are approximately 54 arts teacher vacancies in city public schools. More troubling is the fact that more than 20% of schools have no full-time certified arts instructor on staff. This is consistent at the middle and high school levels where, according to state education law, students must complete two arts courses led by an instructor certified in the subject matter they teach. We call upon the DOE and the Office of Arts and Special Projects to ensure that all 54 vacancies are filled in a timely manner and that all schools have a minimum of one certified arts instructor on staff to ensure that New York City school children receive the quality arts instruction to which they are entitled. Sincerely, Doug Israel Director of Research and Policy