Published: May 1, 1996

Where The Jobs Are

Bob Vidal is looking for teachers, and he needs a lot of them. The assistant chief operating officer for the Denver public schools has 450 classroom positions to fill by the fall, and he knows that finding that many new teachers isn't going to be easy.

For one thing, he is looking to hire the kinds of teachers who are always in short supply: special education and bilingual teachers and members of minority groups. And he is stuck with a shrinking budget that doesn't allow for much out-of-state recruiting, much less reimbursements to new hires for long-distance moves.

Although he managed to hire 300 new teachers last year, Vidal admits that his 64,000-student district hasn't succeeded in recruiting and diversifying as well as he would like. "What we find in this area is that people want to stay in their own states," he says. "We...