Art Teacher looking for MS/HS job, only getting elementary offers

Take the elementary job, give the students your all and use it as valuable experience. Any time you spend in front of a classroom full of students is both invaluable experience for you, and it looks very good on your resume. The first teaching job is the hardest one to get, but after that it gets much easier. Basically, if you get one district to give you a chance it will open doors to all the other districts. Just don't tell anyone or let on that this is a pit stop in your career. Teach those kids and be awesome and who knows, you may fall in love with them. As a teacher of High Schoolers, you may have elevated subject matter, but you will have to deal with lack of enthusiasm, laziness, senioritis and any number of other drama filled situations that are pretty much absent from young kids. Source: I teach high school senior English

I'm going into my second year teaching in Florida. I would not suggest turning down work, even if it's not exactly what you're looking for. It's much easier to get interviews for other positions once you have experience, connections, references, etc. It's common for teachers to move around grades and subjects and admins understand this desire. Also, beware of idealizing older students. Yes, you can go deeper into subject matter. But you also will deal with behavior and motivation issues that don't exist in elementary. And don't count on teaching to meet your intellectual needs, because it probably won't - even with awesome high school kids. And sometimes, you just have to take what comes to you. I set out to teach high school Social Studies. I got hired to teach middle school Language Arts. I found a job at a great middle school, close to home, with an awesome staff. It's a great place for me to work and grow, even though it's not 100% what I wanted. On preview: Everything TBSS said.

Oops, forgot to respond to this: How would it be possible to look for another job within the district, without my boss (the principal) finding out? Positions are posted publicly and there is often a lot of movement between different schools in a district, not unusual at all. And really, because of the way schools work, most hiring is only once a year - in the spring for the fall, so its not like there will be lots of positions opening up all the time. Just keep your eye out for new postings.

Everyone here is right. I teach music and am frequently on district interview teams and in on hiring discussions. You should take the elementary job. 1. It looks much, much better to someone hiring you if you have held a real actual teaching job and been in charge of your own classroom and gotten through the (often sucky) reality of your first year teaching rather than just subbing. 2. It looks much much better when you have a Real Actual Principal recommending you for your next job rather than...your student teaching supervisor from 3 years ago? Most decent principals will understand someone wanting a different grade level and moving towards that goal. 3. You can spend this year getting connected with the other art teachers, getting to know any art curriculum specialists and making yourself useful in whatever way you can. Districts are like really small towns; a principal may call the only other art person they know and say, "Hey what do you know about Anonymous?" and if that person says "She seems really smart at the in-services, went to the curriculm committee meetings, and totally helped out with hanging the student work at the museum" that will go a long way. 4. Besides the small-towniness tht increases your odds of hire as an internal candidate, there may be an actual real contractual preference for internal hires. In our district we have to interview at least three internal candidates (if there are that many) for transfer jobs before we can even look at external hires. 5. You may find out that you love it after all. I thought I wanted to teach middle or high school band, but moved to a district where they were short orchestra teachers and I was more qualified than anyone else and wanted a job, so I took it. Turns out I really love 6-8 orchestra and I'll never go back to band.

In my 27+ years teaching experience, what I've noticed is that you have to get your foot in the door with a school. Most people accomplish this by where they chose to do their student teaching or subbing for a year or two at the school they want to work. The majority of school districts hire from within, so if you take that elementary position, rock the hell out of it, when an opening at the high school level does arise, you can apply for that. In the mean time you're getting a lot of valuable experience, not only for your resume, but for you as a teacher as well. My first job was teaching elementary catholic school for peanuts, seriously the pay was crap. I could have made a lot more money working retail, but that wasn't going to give me the experience I needed, so I took the job and got a part time job to get by. Things I learned from that first job - even though I teach high school English now - are still incredibly valuable to me. Good luck!

One more thought - the fact that you are a first year teacher with a master's degree in a competitive market may explain why you aren't getting a lot of offers. Schools pay on scales where x=degree and y= years experience, so you are going to cost a school district a lot more than a first year teacher with a bachelor's degree.

I have heard that many teachers switch schools after their first year of teaching. I'm not a teacher, but I know that in the district where I live, you're tied to the school for the first three years and if another school in the district wants you, one principal has to ask the other to let you transfer. (I have idea how common that sort of system is. I just happen to know someone where the school he student taught at couldn't hire him for whatever reason, so he ended up elsewhere in the district and now his first school is trying to get him back.)