A resident whose family member was passed over for a teaching position at Haines School has collected 150 signatures on a local-hire petition.
The petition is being circulated by Charlie DeWitt, a former borough assemblyman and former high school shop teacher. The petition states support for local hire and for the hiring of daughter-in-law Lexie DeWitt to a fourth-grade teaching job she held last year, filling in for a teacher on sabbatical.
Lexie DeWitt was one of three local candidates for two, full-time elementary teaching jobs that went to teachers from outside Haines. There were 37 applicants for the two openings.
“I’m all for hiring the best person but I still don’t feel it’s right that a local person can’t get that job,” DeWitt said. He said students in Lexie’s class scored very high on standardized tests. “I think she’s demonstrated she’s a good teacher and she gets along well with the students… It’s too bad we have to ship our jobs out when we have people here who are qualified.”
DeWitt said he’s frustrated residents can’t see the resumes of the applicants who got the jobs, and said the make-up of the hiring committee was vague. “It seems to be that anyone who wants to do it, gets on it.”
He said he was also concerned about a possible bias against local candidates. “If the (hiring committee) doesn’t like your philosophy or something about you, you’re out of luck.”
School superintendent Michael Byer this week said a hiring committee of eight people came to a consensus on both hires that it found the most qualified for the positions. The selections were forwarded to Byer and the school board for approval.
The positions are advertised locally and statewide. The selection committee was created through soliciting volunteers and made up of board members, teachers and community members. Byer said of the 17 teachers hired in the past six years, eight were hired from the local community and another nine were from within Alaska.
But Byer said there is no policy currently that dictates local preference in hiring. “In hiring it is always tough when you’re dealing with people’s lives,” Byer said. “I understand that.”
Byer said if a petition is presented to the school board, he would recommend sticking with the committee’s decision.
“If you have a committee that does all this work and they’ve done the best job they can, it would have to be some pretty compelling evidence of a problem to which you would want to turn the decision over,” he said.