A teaching certificate can be a ticket to a challenging cross-cultural adventure in the remote and road-less areas of the 49th State, Alaska.
Alaska is really two places. The first is the modern, urban Alaska, which looks similar to thousands of communities across the USA. The other is rural Alaska: a vast roadless, wilderness that is home to about 250 small and widely scattered communities. Even though these isolated outposts vary geographically, climatically, and ethnically, they are still collectively referred to as “the bush.”
More Teaching Jobs in Bush Alaska than in Urban Schools
The Alaska Department of Education reports that 53% of Alaska’s public schools are located in the bush. Staff turnover in these rural schools is typically quite high, with the average teacher staying only one to three years. Districts in remote areas are constantly looking for good people to fill vacancies.
Advantages of Teaching In the Bush
Beside the opportunity for personal enrichment in a new culture, bush school districts offer incentives to get and keep good people, such as attractive salaries, and benefits such as good health insurance, furnished teacher housing, and signing bonuses. Some districts also cover a portion of the moving and travel expenses incurred by new teachers. In addition, teachers in bush schools often qualify for partial or total student loan forgiveness programs.
Challenges of Bush Living
Living in the bush isn't for everyone. Besides entering a new culture, and often a new climate, bush living usually means ordering groceries through the mail, traveling on small planes with non-existent schedules, and learning to live without coffee shops, restaurants, hair salons, massage therapists, malls, and more.
Challenges of Bush Teaching
According the Alaska Department of Education, 41% of Alaska’s schools did not make their Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) last year, as required by the No Child Left Behind legislation. A significant number of these schools are bush schools. To compensate, many schools districts have adopted highly scripted programs like Saxon Phonics, Success For All, Reading 180, and Star Math, which many teachers find onerous. Most districts also require demanding student progress monitoring and reporting.
How to Find a Teaching Job in the Bush
The Alaska Teacher Placement web site is the best place to start searching for teaching vacancies. Openings and links to all of Alaska's school district are listed. The district web sites list salaries, benefits, details about living and working in the district. including the cost of living, and job applications.
Alaska Teacher Certification
To teach in Alaska, applicants must have a valid Alaska teaching certificate. The application is available on the Alaska Department of Education and Early Childhood Development web site. Applicants who have a teaching certificate from another state usually have no problem qualifying to teach in Alaska.
Teaching in the bush is challenging on many levels, but very rewarding too.
