By SAMI MCGUIRE
Student Reporter
On Oct. 20, Northwestern Oklahoma State University held the Teacher Fair to help education majors find potential careers with searching schools.
For the past six years every fall and spring semester elementary and high schools from all around Oklahoma and Kansas meet to create the Teacher Fair. Lisa Franz, Career Services Coordinator and Transfer Recruiter, said the fair was a complete success and “The school representatives were very complimentary of our education students and excited about our upcoming and future graduates.”
The purpose of the fair is to help students get in touch with potential employers by bringing them to Northwestern, according to Franz. Some of the schools that attended were Blackwell Public Schools, Fairview Public Schools, El Reno Public Schools, Woodward Public Schools, Guymon Public Schools and many others. Professional Oklahoma Educators also attended the Teacher Fair.
Professional Oklahoma Educators is a non-union, nonpartisan professional association for all Oklahoma school personnel. Members of the association receive liability insurance, legal services and lobby representation. According to Julie Coshow, Regional Education Professional, they have several members of Professional Oklahoma Educators at Northwestern, 10 members originally and eight more signed up during the fair. Coshow also said “We would like to start a chapter here soon, at Northwestern. We feel that it is important for student teachers to join some organization.”
Another school attending the Teacher Fair was El Reno Public Schools. Representing them was Julie Huber, Director of School Improvement. According to Huber El Reno Public Schools has been to the Teacher Fair many times and has had a lot of success. The school’s assistant superintendent, a football coach and a second grade teacher there are all graduates of Northwestern.
Guymon Public Schools is a much more diverse school compared to others at the fair, according to Doug Melton, a Northwestern graduate. Guymon’s school has 25 different languages, and is 80% minority and only 20% Caucasian. According to Melton he has been coming to the Teacher Fair for 18 years, and this year he was successful in receiving 10 student resumes.
Woodward Public School’s representative, Michelle McDonald, also a Northwestern graduate, was happy to tell me how the fair had gone for their school. She said “I’m impressed with the quality of applicants and candidates that walked around this morning. They were very well prepared, they were outgoing, they had a lot of questions and they were very knowledgeable.”
Melissa Moore, Blackwell’s Elementary School principal, was also a graduate of Northwestern. According to Moore she believed the fair was a big success and was happy to have gotten many applicants.
According to Franz, this coming spring there will be another Teacher Fair. The hope for the next fair is to be able to provide same day interviews between the schools and education majors. Franz believes this will be a huge advantage for the schools coming from a long distance to meet the education majors. Franz said “It will also be beneficial to our students as they will be able to, hopefully, secure employment for the upcoming year before they even graduate!”
Overall, this semester’s Teacher Fair had a good turn out of schools and students. Many of the schools had a large stack of applicants at the end of the day. Franz also said “From the response of the school representatives, our education students were well prepared for the event and many of the schools were interested in interviewing them for immediate openings and upcoming positions for the next year.”