Right from the Start: DC’s Groundbreaking Teacher Hiring Strategy

Published September 2021
by Lynn Olson, Sandi Jacobs, Tom Toch

As districts continue to deal with the repercussions of the lingering coronavirus crisis, they have teacher vacancies to fill, a perennial problem complicated by the pandemic. This report, from FutureEd and EdCounsel, profiles the District of Columbia’s highly successful response to the problem. DCPS uses a multi-step process for vetting candidates, a state-of-the-art web portal, and data analysis to help schools select top applicants as early as possible in the annual hiring cycle, resulting in more effective and more diverse new hires.