Hiring for Success: The Hiring Practices of Site-Based Principals in One District in Virginia

The goal of our educational system is to create successful students. Research has found that instruction from a high-quality teacher has more impact than other factors, and students taught by those high-performing teachers experience a range of long-term ongoing benefits (Marzano,2003; Chetty et al., 2011). Understanding this impact, one of the most important roles of educational leaders is to ensure that they are hiring teachers who will be effective at instruction. This hiring effectiveness has a direct impact on the efficacy of their school (Donaldson, 2011; Loeb et al., 2012). Despite the importance of using effective hiring practices, there has been a scarcity of research on determining what practices have been found to be successful in hiring high-quality teachers (Klassen and Kim, 2019; Bruno and Strunk, 2019). The purpose of this study was to examine the hiring practices of principals to discover what practices they found to be successful. Through the framework of a basic qualitative study, several principals were interviewed regarding their hiring practices. Through the study, the lessons that they learned from their hiring experiences were examined. By analyzing these practices, commonalities were explored that might be applicable to a broader group of hiring administrators. With teacher shortages hitting school districts nationwide (Walker, 2019), this study sought to provide assistance to those making those hiring decisions to help them secure the most effective teachers who will have a positive impact on student success. The findings discuss the importance of having common hiring practices, the ways that administrators develop those hiring practices, the factors currently prioritized when making hiring decisions (candidate experience and the perception of candidate interpersonal skills), and the impact that a smaller available pool of candidates has had on the hiring process. The implications suggest that districts should focus on including research-based hiring practices into their professional development opportunities and should provide more opportunities for discussion around hiring practices. Finally, the current hiring conditions should encourage leaders to adjust their approach to the hiring process in order to recruit and retain effective teachers in this competitive educational job market. As principals work to grapple with hiring challenges, continued research on effective practices will be needed to help guide them towards making the best choices. The success of their school and students requires nothing less.