URGENT *NC House Bill 706*

Date: Friday, 8 April 2005 10:25am ET
To: ncsenatemembers@ms.ncga.state.nc.us, cbwhiteh@unity.ncsu.edu, jwhitehurst@unity.ncsu.edu
From: JWHITEHURST@WCPSS
Subject: URGENT *NC House Bill 706*

Please forward the following mandate to your NC Senators in the general assembly:
list of senators: http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/members/memberList.pl?sChamber=Senate

PLEASE PASS House Bill 706
Facilitate Hiring Teachers
http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2005&BillID=H706

*** It is URGENT to move this Bill to Legislation and PASS it QUICKLY ***

The School System is currently recruiting teachers for the school year 2005-2006.
Highly Qualified teachers are needed in ALL classrooms.
Teacher Shortage in North Carolina needs to be controlled.
Let the School System hire Qualified teachers from anywhere in the United States.
Don't let what happened to me happen to anyone else.

My name is Jane Whitehurst. I currently teach Computer Science at Apex High School, in North Carolina. I am teaching under a provisional business license and am about to lose my job even though I am highly qualified. To help you understand why, here are my credentials:

· An undergraduate bachelor of arts in computer science with an education minor from Clemson University, SC
· A master of science in computer science education from Cardinal Stritch University, Wisconsin
· A post-baccalaureate certification in computer science 9-12 from Cardinal Stritch University, Wisconsin
· A Wisconsin license in Computer Science (405) to teach computer programming in high school (9-12)
· 3 years employment - Oak Creek High School, Wisconsin (where I wrote the programming curriculum)
· A North Carolina license in Mathematics (200) with Computer Endorsement (18079)
· Teacher at Broughton High School (Wake County, NC) - algebra and computer science in the Math dpt.
· Created computer science pacing guides for Wake County
· Teacher at Apex High School, (Wake County, NC) - computer science in the Business dpt.

Unfortunately, the law stands now to not allow me to teach Computer Programming courses because they are taught in the Business Department and I don't meet NC guidelines for a business license even though I only teach computer programming; I do however meet the requirements to teach these courses in the Math department. This situation needs to be rectified because there is no reason to lose good teachers.