There are mountains of documentation. Efforts are under way to ease the process. Meanwhile, both the Illinois and Georgia departments of education have sponsored programs to help school districts with their recruiting efforts. The firm this year placed 700 teachers from 20 countries in classrooms in seven states. For a fee, VIF conducts the overseas recruiting, initially screens job applicants, and handles the immigration paperwork.
Teachers enter the U.S. on a two-year cultural exchange visa.
Despite the distances involved, local school officials are insistent that overseas job applicants undergo traditional job interviews. But that's followed by teleconference interviews with a top administrator and school principals. In Fulton County, which has turned to VIF for its recruiting, final job interviews are conducted by telephone, which Jessie admits hasn't been accepted by all principals. Once they've arrived in the United States, new teachers usually are put through some kind of orientation to prepare them for the cultural differences, new work environment, and mountain of paperwork that are part of American schools, officials say. In Fulton County, new teachers get a crash course in classroom management.