A smile still comes to Alex Murray’s face when he recalls the words his Beaver County high school art teacher told him two days out from summer vacation.
Murray spent four weeks creating a face mask inspired by characters from book-turned-film “Pan’s Labyrinth” — a task his teacher once told him would be too difficult to complete as the school calendar drew to an end.
“It took me forever,” said Murray, now a 25-year-old student at University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg. “But I got it completed and I got it to him the day before the last day of school.
“He took that and he put 100% in the grade and he said, ‘You do this kind of work and you get that grade.’ That always just stuck with me.”
The aspiring social studies teacher was one of 18 students who participated in mock interviews with local school administrators on Pitt-Greensburg’s campus this week.
Panels of about three or four educators interviewed students for 30 minutes each, asking standard hiring questions and providing feedback on each response.
Jessica McCormick, an assistant elementary education professor at Pitt-Greensburg, said the university launched the mock interview event last year to give interview practice to education students completing a student teaching placement.
“They can get their jitters out today,” she said. “They can make mistakes, and the feedback is given so that whenever they go do their first real interview, they’re able to at least feel confident in what their answers are.”
Students grateful for practice
Having no previous interview experience for a teaching job, Murray values the feedback he received.
“You’re trying to get them to see why they want to hire you,” he said.
Having attended several local and national education conferences in his four years at Pitt-Greensburg, Ben Myers said he doesn’t often come across other colleges and universities that offer hands-on interviewing practice.
“It allowed me personally to understand what type of questions I need to improve on — what things I should be making sure I say in the interview process to give me the edge over other (candidates) for the jobs,” said Myers, 22, who is studying elementary education.
Statewide teacher shortage
But as schools across the state grapple with teacher vacancies and a shortage of newly-certified educators, Pitt-Greensburg’s mock interview process also proves beneficial for local administrators on the hunt for employees.
More than 2,300 teaching positions were vacant in Pennsylvania as of January, according to data released by the state. About 50% of those positions were filled by long or short-term substitute teachers, while the rest remained vacant — resolved by teachers covering classes during their free periods or students being assigned to other sections of a course.
A December 2023 amendment to the state school code enabled the state Education Department to collect and release teacher vacancy data for the first time. The October 2023 report revealed 2,156 vacant teaching positions.
Pennsylvania has seen a slight improvement in teacher attrition rates, according to a report published in July by Penn State education professor Ed Fuller. After reporting a record high statewide teacher attrition rate of 7.7% in 2023, the rate dropped to 6.7% last year, Fuller said.
Pitt-Greensburg’s mock interview practice has connected administrators from schools like Southmoreland, Hempfield, Norwin and Mt. Pleasant with aspiring teachers, McCormick said.
“We are in a huge teacher shortage right now, so a lot of (the administrators) are giving me feedback about, ‘Hey, you have this student that answered really great today. We’re looking to keep their resume,’” she said.
“It’s helping them get that jump start.”
Across her 31-year career in education, Heather Newell has never seen a teacher shortage quite like the one Pennsylvania’s schools have struggled with in recent years.
Norwin’s director of elementary education, Newell said the district is always searching for educators — particularly substitute teachers and paraprofessionals who could be trained to work as full-time teachers.
“It’s really important that we support and prepare our college students who want to be teachers so they continue down that path,” said Newell, who helped interview about nine Pitt-Greensburg students this week.
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“It’s really important that they are able to network and find a community of people that want to support them, because that’s what’s best for kids.”