Standing before a sea of unfamiliar faces, Dr. Amy Wise felt the intense pressure of needing to prepare a class for their AP Biology exam. The threat of the looming exam hung in the air as Wise prepared to sweep the bright eyes in front of her into their final unit of the year.

The students in the room had never seen this fresh face at the front of their class before. Wise was there to teach a sample class as another link in the chain of challenges given to prospective teachers.

As Wise eased into the lesson, her stress melted away into a feeling of ease as the eager students readily engaged with her. One girl in particular shot her hand up often to ask a slew of insightful questions. 

Wise felt wholly welcomed into this earnest and friendly learning environment, and she almost forgot about the handful of administrators and department teachers observing her from the deepest part of the room, noting her every move.

Wise was one of five teachers to pass the many trials required to become a Sanford teacher in the fall of 2022. Her natural fit as the teacher of that AP Biology class helped seal the deal, and head of school, Mark Anderson, reached out to her about a month later to offer her the position. Now, Wise is at Sanford full time teaching freshman Biology, sophomore chemistry, and AP Biology. She has even inherited an advisory.

Across the past few years, Sanford has followed a trend seen in many schools across the United States: the rate of teacher turnover has spiked upward. Research from an educational study shows that throughout many states, the number of teachers leaving each year has increased by an average of two percent. This means that one in every fifty teachers needs to be replaced each year.  

Because Sanford is also feeling this effect, our administrators have had to push into high gear to find its next set of superstar teachers. In this year alone, head of school, Mark Anderson, has conducted over 60 interviews via Zoom in search for new Sanford faculty. With many teachers either retiring or moving away, there is a great need to find new teachers.

Though it is common practice in many schools to keep the hiring process contained within the admissions office, Sanford takes a different approach. Upper school head, Abbi Smith, stresses the importance of involving current Sanford students and teachers in the decision process. 

“It’s an important part of my job because [the teachers] make or break a student’s experience,” Smith says. She describes that she takes this aspect of her job very seriously to ensure Sanford is the best it can be to support its students. 

Smith outlines the thorough process that all teaching hopefuls must go through to become a Sanford teacher: Prospective teachers are first introduced to the Sanford hiring team through hiring fairs, online advertisements, college education programs, or the head hunting firm Carney Sandoe Associates. Anderson then conducts a preliminary interview with them via Zoom before passing them off to Smith for a second interview. Smith and Anderson each ask the candidate the same questions individually to monitor if and how their responses change.

“We want to make sure that the person is being consistent, but also that we’re taking the same thing away from that conversation,” Smith explains. This gives them confidence in that prospective teacher’ answers. 

After talking to Smith, promising candidates are passed along to the chair of the department they are seeking to enter for an additional conversation. If all involved parties agree that this person has the potential to do well at Sanford, then they are brought to campus for a day. While on campus, each prospective teacher is given the chance to meet the team of teachers from that department as well as the head of Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI). They also are given a chance to teach a class and later answer to a panel of volunteer student interviewers. All Sanford participants in this process are given a survey to share their personal feedback with the admin team. This way, the admission’s team is able to better understand students’ perspectives about a given candidate and take their feedback into consideration.

“Our number one most important thing is the ability to connect with students,” Smith emphasizes, “if you can’t connect with teenagers, that’s a problem.” She expresses that all students should have a teacher on campus that they can connect with and relate to. To ensure this, Sanford wants to maintain a diverse set of faculty on campus. This is a primary reason that teaching candidates must interact with student panels as well as our DEI head, Jamy Haughey, before being hired.

If a teaching candidate is still in the running after this part of the process, Smith checks their listed references and calls their current supervisors to inquire about their standing. This displays a more complete view of this person’s character and work ethic, fueling confidence to the admissions team’s decision. Any candidates who makes it through this extensive process receive a call from Anderson with a job offer. They are typically given about a week to mull it over and respond.

Sanford’s thorough head hunting and hiring process has yielded many hit teachers across the past few years. In this past year alone, five new rockstars have been brought to the Upper School: Mac Weymouth, BJ Love, Scott Persichetti, Elizabeth Brown, and Amy Wise. These fresh faces span across every department of education in the Upper School; no one subject has a greater need for teachers than any other.

Reminiscing on his application process to Sanford, Scott Persichetti recalls how a teacher in the history department at the time of this visit, Hunter Zavawski, assured smooth sailing for his time with students on his campus visit. Before Persichetti was brought in, 

Zavawski reached out and walked him through what area of history the class was currently studying to help ensure his sample lesson was relevant. This same courtesy is extended to all prospective teachers who earn a chance to visit campus and perform in front of a class. 

Persichetti also recalls the feelings he got about Sanford after interacting with both the students and the teachers during his visit. He remarks that whenever he would ask any student what they loved most about Sanford, he’d always get the same response: the community. Persichetti then had a chance to experience this for himself before joining the team when he had a lunch-in with the current faculty in the history department. Here, he witnessed first hand the Sanford camaraderie that the students had raved about.

“It seemed really apparent that they enjoyed working with one another” Persichetti says, “it’s a lot easier coming into a place thinking, ‘oh well, I’ll be welcomed, everyone seems to get along well.’” In this way, Sanford has successfully attracted numerous superstar teachers, and hopes for continued success with bringing in some more.

Another individual to successfully emerge from the hiring process in this past year and demonstrate Sanford’s success at hiring folks who envelop the Sanford mission is Mac Weymouth. For a portion of a typical class, Weymouth can be found sitting alongside his students at clusters of their desks, having conversations with them in Spanish. Weymouth ensures that each and every student is engaged with regularly, ensuring that they all have an equal chance to practice the new grammar and vocabulary that they had learned in his class. As the head of the Spanish department, Stacey Hendrix, will be quick to point out, the best way to improve your understanding of a second language is to engage in conversation with it.

Weymouth emphasizes the positive impact that having community with students can have on their learning experience. This is a quality that the administrators not only encourage, but require. 

Though the rate of teacher turnover is on the rise, these shining examples of the fruit of the admission team’s thorough and laborious process can provide assurance to students that they need not be worried. 

Sanford is currently trying to wrangle in seven new teachers to the Upper School for this coming fall. Five of these newbies will be filling the roles of teachers who are leaving Sanford, but the other two positions have been created to aid with expansion. For example, a second physics teacher will be joining the fold alongside the current teacher, William Petterson. Lowering the ratio of teachers to students allows Sanford to further pursue its goal of giving every student a chance to connect with at least one teacher. While this will ultimately be beneficial for Sanford, it also ensures that the admission team will be working even more tirelessly to fill these extra positions with the cream of the crop.

So far, over twenty candidates have been brought to campus. From this pool, over half of the seven available spots for the fall of 2023 have been filled. While the school year is winding down, the admissions team will still be working hard to find excellent and passionate teachers to fill the remaining positions.