Staffing the Classroom: How Urban Principals Find Teachers and Make Hiring Decisions

Despite the importance of teachers and the fact that teacher hiring is decentralized in most school districts, we know relatively little about the process through which individual principals hire faculty for their schools. Using interviews with 31 Chicago principals, we explore how principals find job candidates, whether they collaborate with their faculty and administrative staff when hiring, and whether and how these principal behaviors vary systematically by school level and by whether schools are higher or lower achieving. We find that principals in higher achieving schools network more to find candidates, whereas principals in lower achieving schools rely more on hiring resources provided by the district and frequently hire their own substitute and student teachers. Implications for research and practice are discussed.