School departments across the North Shore are exploring the principle of strength in numbers.
The first-ever North Shore Job Fair scheduled May 12 at Collins Middle School in Salem will be their first test.
The event is the first of four projects designed to help neighboring communities regionalize their efforts and save cash, said Joseph Domelowicz Jr. of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.
"Especially when you're talking about education and maximizing money, the best way to do that in an environment of shrinking budgets is to minimize expenses in other areas," said Domelowicz, a senior municipal services coordinator for MAPC who is overseeing the regionalization effort.
Last year, the planning council's North Shore coalition — composed of area mayors and town managers — gave the agency a mandate: find ways to keep costs down by working together, he said. The group decided to devote 30 percent of its $250,000 District Local Technical Assistance grant to the concept.
Domelowicz said after six months of brainstorming they decided to focus on education and organize the regional job fair. Next, they hope to regionalize teacher training, certain forms of school transportation and supply purchasing.
Though jobs have been scarce across all sectors — and layoffs seemingly commonplace in education — some positions have historically been difficult to fill, he said.
"We get a lot of history and English applicants," said Jeanine D'Entremont, Salem's administrative assistant for human resources. "Sometimes we get very few of the physics, chemistry and biology."
Organizers of the North Shore Job Fair decided to create the event to hunt for those candidates in English for non-native speakers, foreign languages, math, science and special education.
"We refined this project down to focus on the hard-to-find teaching positions," Domelowicz said.
Despite the poor economy, districts have retirements, turnover and the unfortunate firings, said Louise Genualdo, Peabody's assistant to the superintendent for human resources.
She said job fairs cost between $500 and $800. A classified ad in the major Boston papers starts at $2,500 for one about the size of a sticky note, she said. The participating districts will share advertising costs.
"It's a way to find prospective teachers in a little bit cheaper way," Domelowicz said.
Each district will pay $800 to participate in the North Shore Job Fair. If the event costs less than the funds collected, then the excess money will be reimbursed, he said.
The fair
Domelowicz said the fair is meant to help districts find solid candidates and for candidates to get prime face time with a prospective employer. It's designed to offer on-the-spot preliminary interviews.
The hope is to attract job seekers who either live in the Salem area or are interested in moving here.
"Experience has shown through other regional job fairs that you get candidates that are very interested in working in your community," Domelowicz said. "It saves you the time of interviewing candidates who are ... more interested in working in Boston."
Genualdo is hopeful the North Shore event will draw not only more but better candidates.
"Maybe we can actually get the cream of the crop in this area," she said.
Danvers Superintendent Lisa Dana said she's looking forward to the fair.
"It definitely is a good cost savings," she said.
To find applicants otherwise, Danvers draws on resources such as colleges, online classified services and other fairs.
Genualdo noted the downside of a regional fair is the potential rivalry among districts for candidates.
"There is probably the possibility there will be competition as far as salary," she said. "I think competition brings forth achievement, too."
MAPC has tapped an existing regional group, the Northshore Education Consortium, to assist in the regionalization process.
"We're taking more of a leadership role," said Robert Gass, executive director of the consortium, which is best known for its regional special education services.
His organization became a natural liaison because of its structure and relationships with 18 school districts, he said.
"Massachusetts has a long history of local control," he said. "When you try to change that, it's viewed very suspiciously."
But suspicions are lifting as the state pushes for more shared services, Gass said.
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The North Shore Job Fair runs from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on May 12 at Collins Middle School in Salem.
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