Palm Beach County to recruit foreign teachers to fill classrooms

[Judi Lynn]

Palm Beach County to recruit foreign teachers to fill classrooms

By Marc Freeman
Education Writer
Posted December 2 2003

The path is open for foreign teachers to come to Palm Beach County public schools like never before.

Looking to fill jobs in critical-need areas such as math and science, the School Board on Monday unanimously agreed to a new policy of hiring international teachers who hold professional visas that are valid at least three years.

The school district has looked outside U.S. borders in recent years, recruiting 35 teachers from the Philippines, 14 from Spain, five from Mexico and two from Venezuela. But those teachers are there on short-term visas through cultural-exchange programs and will have to leave if they can't get extensions.

Under the new program, the district will help foreign teachers already in the United States obtain the professional visas through an expedited federal process. With only 65,000 granted in the United States per year, these visas eventually can lead to legal residency. The school district will pay a $1,000 per teacher sponsorship fee plus a $130 application fee.

(snip) District officials say they would like to stick with U.S. graduates, but they've come up short because of a nationwide shortage of math teachers. The Broward and Miami-Dade districts in recent years also have sought to hire South Florida's educated immigrants to fill math and science teaching openings. (snip/...)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-pvisas02dec02,0,2289478.story?coll=sfla-news-palm


Professor Irwin Corey
World's Foremost Authority

[ClintonTyree]

1. Only in Florida...................

"In other business, the School Board voted 6-1 with Chairman Tom Lynch dissenting to settle a lawsuit brought by residents of the Banyan Lakes community in Wellington who opposed the construction of Palm Beach Central High School. Residents feared noise, traffic and sinking property values."

Now we wouldn't want our property values going down because of a school, now would we? If Florida payed teachers enough maybe they'd have more luck recruiting them.

You get what you pay for. Penny wise and pound foolish Florida will never learn, as long as Jebbie's at the helm. They rather have the taxpayers pay the bills for all of their phosphate miners' toxic cleanup instead of putting a quality educational system in place.

This state ranks in the lower levels of educational systems, and is it any wonder? I would advise anyone with children thinking of moving to Florida to think again, long and hard.

[Bandit]

3. I'm sure they will get far better educated people for less money

Americans need to wake up to the fact that they are not the best at everything. They fall way behind in the education field also in health care and child mortality. Hell even Cuba beats the US in most fields.

[ramapo]

2. How hard did they look?

For teachers in the United States? Bet this is more related to getting teachers on the cheap...