Principal Tim Phares said the administration is currently planning for the 2024-2025 school year. After scheduling was completed in the Counseling Center, administrators consider recruiting and hiring when necessary.

“For February and March, they’re two months where we start to look at next year,” Phares said. “So now is a really big time for many of our administrators because they are trying to crunch the numbers and look at where those courses need to be added, what impact that might have on staffing, and (then) go from there. Right now we’re really in the crux of that.”

Phares said administration works to create a pool of potential hires throughout the school year so that candidates are already compiled before an opening becomes available. Phares said, “If people reach out to us and say ‘I have interest in working at Carmel High School,’ we want to be able to get to know them and build our candidate pool throughout the year, versus before, when we would wait for a position to be posted (to meet candidates).”

Phares said he is already meeting with candidates. “I’m going to be meeting with a potential teacher from Missouri. They’re relocating here and we’ve already screened this potential candidate and we think we might need this person on our staff as a teacher. When those things present themselves, we want to take advantage (of them), because we are very competitive and people are trying to hire all the time.”

Phares said new staff openings are expected each year when teachers retire, relocate or resign. Administrators work to find candidates at events such as interview fairs to fill these positions.

“Once we go through the names, we go through an interview process,” Phares said. The multi-step process includes meetings with current teachers and administrators. “Usually, the final interview is with me and I lead that interview process and we go from there,” Phares said.

Nada Dawood, co-president of the Arab Student Association and senior, said she is glad CHS has such an extensive interview process, especially for new classes, such as Arabic, which will be offered for the first time during the 2024-2025 school year. Dawood said, “I think it’s important to have extensive interviews to make sure that teachers are qualified and know the material they’ll be teaching.”

Phares said there are district and school onboarding protocols once a teacher is hired. Onboarding begins with a kickoff meeting and continues throughout the school year. Phares said, “For us on the building level, we have our own onboarding process. So they have a mentor teacher; they have their team. We do a new teacher professional development throughout the entire school year where they meet once a month together and go (learn how) to be a Carmel teacher.”