How to Find Elementary Teaching Jobs in Texas

When it comes to finding elementary teaching jobs in Texas the choices run from A to Z or from Austin to Zapata.

With more than five million students enrolled in 1,227 school districts across the state prospective elementary teachers have employment choices that really do run from A to Z: from large districts like Austin ISD with more than 83,000 students to small Zapata ISD which serves a town of less than 15,000 along the Rio Grande.

Before you dash off your resume, you have to make sure you have met the basic requirements to teach in Texas. The three main hurdles are:

• Pass content tests in the area you want to teach. The state exams in Texas are known as TExES (Texas Examinations of Educator Standards).
• Enroll in an approved alternative Texas teacher certification program; university undergraduate or university post baccalaureate  program.  In Texas 49 percent of all new teachers are prepared through alternative programs.
• Complete 120 hours of training.

Clear the hurdles above and you will be on your way to earning teacher certification in Texas.

Once you are ready to seek a Texas teaching job, it can be a bit overwhelming. Texas, after all, is a state that takes more than 12 hours to drive across from Beaumont to El Paso.

Fortunately you can save on gas money and shoe leather, because searching for elementary teaching jobs in Texas is painless with online resources at your fingertips.

Your biggest job search help is provided courtesy of the state of Texas, which has a statewide employment website available for free to those looking for employment with Lonestar school districts and charter schools.

The Work in Texas website is home to a vast array of employment openings in Texas in all fields, with currently almost 300,000 total job openings and just over 300,000 active resumes registered with the site. Think of Work in Texas as the Match.com for getting a job in Texas, as it links up employers and job seekers.

Other go-to websites for searching for online for elementary teaching jobs in Texas include ihireelementaryteachers.com, indeed.com and monster.com.

Getting onto ihireelementaryteachers.com is simple, as you can sign up via your Google, Facebook or Yahoo account. A search shows 909 results for “elementary teacher” and “Texas”.

Note that you will need to sign up for a premium account on ihireelementaryteachers.com to unlock some jobs. The cost is $25 to $35 a month. If paying helps speed your job search then you might find it worthwhile, but keep in mind you can get to all teaching vacancies via individual school district websites, so you don’t have to pay if you are on a tight budget.

For example, on ihireelementaryteachers.com you can spy a “Teacher, 5^th Grade (Math) Houston ISD” opening. If you don’t have a premium account, you can't get the actual listing. But with the title, you can go to the Houston ISD website and click “Instructional Vacancies for Elementary (26 openings)”, find one opening for "5^th Grade Math" and see the details of a job at Thompson Elementary with a starting salary of $52,530.

Remember that nearly every school district in Texas comes with the designation “ISD” for "Independent School District", so finding a school district website is often as easy as doing a search for the area you want to teach in (say, Klein in the Houston suburbs) and then adding ISD. 

Speaking of Klein, on indeed.com you can find an opening at Klein ISD for a 3^rd grade elementary teacher. You may notice that both Houston and Klein ISD’s use the Frontline system for taking teaching applications and resumes. Once you have put your information into this system for one school district, you can import it for another school district, if they are using Frontline. This will save you a lot of time.

Another option for Texas teachers job seekers is to attend a job fair hosted by school districts. Conroe ISD in the Houston area, for example, is hosting its 16^th annual Professional Job Fair in April. Last year, the school district was seeking 500 new employees.

When looking for an elementary teaching position keep in mind that the larger school districts in the state in Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio and other big metro area account for 51 percent of the students enrolled in the state, even though they comprise just four percent of the state’s school districts.

After finding that perfect teaching job, confirm that it is legitimate, as the Texas Workforce Commission warns about online job scams and then be prepared to interview in person.

Most of all, relax, as you have made the right choice to teach elementary school students in Texas and a rewarding career is about to begin.