Students Leaving The Area After Graduation? It's More Than "There Aren't Any Jobs"

Working with schools for the past 8 years has allowed me to hear individuals lament the fact that children are leaving their hometowns and travelling to other parts of the country in order to find work. Of course, recent graduates could be engineers, and don't want to move to the part of the country where they'd gone to school. Others could be liberal arts majors who are still trying to find what their ultimate calling in life is.

However, teaching presents an interesting exemplar. I've come to this realization after being offered a position at a school in the Southern part of the country several years ago, and after my daughter has been applying to schools throughout our hometown area in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and finally landing a teaching job...in North Carolina.

It's not that other schools around here were not interested. Some school districts do their first round of hirings in May, then, if those that are offered positions do not accept, round two happens in June. There could be another round in July and even one in August as those that are in current positions may accept a position at another school district.

But schools in the Northeast start school at the end of August; schools in New York start after Labor Day. Conversely, schools in the South start during the first week of August, with teacher days beginning in some schools at the end of July. New York doesn't get out of school until the 3rd of 4th week of June.

Some schools in Southwestern Pennsylvania won't start looking at resumes until mid-July; some schools in Northwestern Pennsylvania are closed in July, and reopen in August to take care of registrations and the like. So the next time we wonder why our kids are leaving the area after they graduate, perhaps it's because they've had to accept a position away from home long before similar industries in their hometown areas were ready to begin their process.

A simple "shift" in thinking might help to reverse the situation, and keep students closer to home to build their local economies, rather than moving away as the rest of us watch the population decline.