Application Handbook Section 10
Choosing Site Preferences
General Information Concerning Geographic Choices
PLACEMENT CHOICES
- Indiana University student teaching placement sites are located in state-accredited schools throughout the state of Indiana.
- In the TEIS application, you will indicate four (4) site preferences for each placement. These are preferences that help guide us in placing you. We will try to secure a placement for you in one of your choices but we cannot guarantee it.
- Your preferences must represent choices in at least two (2) different counties for each placement. For example, your first and second choices could be in Monroe county and your third and fourth choices could be in Brown County. You cannot have all four site preferences in the same county. You may, however, wish to represent three or four counties
- In the TEIS application, there is a place for you to indicate which school corporation you would prefer.
- From the time we mail your application until we receive a confirmation, your application is considered "pending." You would have to submit in writing an appeal to make any changes to your site preferences for any pending placement. Except in extreme circumstances, confirmed placements cannot be changed. Therefore, please take great care in selecting your site preferences.
- If you need assistance in determining the names of counties or school corps, you can use this link to go to the Indiana School Directory
STUDENT TEACHING IN THE BLOOMINGTON AREA
NO ONE is guaranteed a student teaching placement in the City of Bloomington. Under certain conditions, however, we do try very hard to place students in the "local area." A local placement is considered to be within a 60 mile readius of Bloomington.
Placements in the Bloomington area are not plentiful. There are always far more students who want to student teach in the Bloomington area than schools can accommodate. Our office, therefore, strongly encourages students to return to their home areas for student teaching.
The School of Education has some special programs that fill many Bloomington-area teaching slots. Aside from those, priority for Bloomington-area placements are given to students who meet at least one the following criteria:
- Student is a Bloomington native.
- Student is from out of state or international students.
- Student is married and/or has children in Bloomington.
If one of these above describes your situation, please note that to us or explain your reasons in the "NOTE" section of the TEIS application.
CHOOSING A POPULAR SCHOOL SYSTEM
There are some school systems throughout the state that are extremely popular as student teaching sites and are annually overwhelmed by requests. Competition in these systems can be quite severe as student teachers from other universities are also vying for placements in these popular locations. Choosing schools in these districts decreases your chances of getting your first or second choice. To be a competitive applicant for schools in these areas, your application MUST go out in our first round of mailings, which means your application MUST be turned in to the Office of Student Teaching ON TIME. If you attend the late application meeting held in the Spring for Fall student teachers or the Fall for Spring student teachers, do not waste your (or our) time requesting a placement in one of these popular corporations.
- Marion County schools in the townships surrounding the Indianapolis area including Decatur, Franklin, Lawrence, Perry, Pike, Warren, Washington, and Wayne.
- Hamilton County schools in the following school systems; Hamilton Southeastern, Hamilton Heights, Westfield-Washington, Marion-Adams, Carmel Clay, and Noblesville.
- Allen County schools in the suburban districts surrounding Fort Wayne including Southwest Allen, Northwest Allen, Fort Wayne Community Schools, and East Allen County Schools.
- St. Joseph County schools in the Penn-Harris-Madison District near South Bend.
- Monroe County schools (see above)
REQUIREMENTS AND STANDARDS
You should also consider that your placement request may be influenced by your grade point average and by the preparation of your student teaching application. Many school systems have minimum GPA requirements, and some will not accept a student teacher if any errors are found in his/her application, especially, if you are an English major.
WHERE YOU CANNOT BE PLACED
The state of Indiana is concerned with objectivity and fairness during your student teaching. Therefore, you cannot be placed: at a school you attended or graduated from;
- where your relatives work;
- where your children or other relatives attend.
- where you have been/are employed.
OUT-OF-STATE PLACEMENTS
Requests to student teach outside of the state of Indiana are rarely granted. If for some very extreme reason you want to student teach out of state, you must write an appeal to the Professional Standards Committee. In this appeal, you must state explicitly the reasons for your request. You may be asked to appear in person before the Committee in order to provide credible evidence that the circumstances on which you are basing your appeal are valid. The burden of proof will be on you to show that there is indeed just cause for this exception.
Out-of-state appeals based on financial need, your convenience, or because you want to student teach where you plan to be employed are considered unacceptable. On the surface, these appear to be perfectly legitimate reasons, but the drain on resources for university supervisors does not permit such exceptions. Each out-of-state placement costs Indiana University extra time and money. It may also cost students a great deal of money to student teach out of state because some institutions insist that the student register there, pay out-of-state fees, and transfer the credit back to Indiana University.
Money problems for college students, while real, are not unique to student teachers. With the exception of a fortunate few, everyone could legitimately claim financial hardship. We know of no other Indiana University program where a student could take seven semesters of study here at Bloomington and then, for financial reasons, go elsewhere for the eighth. It is certainly NOT the policy of the School of Education to allow this, and you should not expect an exception to be made on this basis.
Asking to student teach where you hope to work also seems to make sense. But again, we cannot provide adequate supervision. Our obligation is to provide the student teacher with the best supervision possible, and we cannot do that if a student is placed out of state.
If you are basing your request on any of the reasons mentioned thus far, you need not appeal--your request will not be granted. If you have a legitimate reason for making an out-of-state appeal, you should send your written request to:
Professional Standards Committee
Indiana University -- School of Education
W. W. Wright Education Building 1020A
Bloomington, IN 47405
SITE SELECTION WORKSHEET
We encourage you to reed all of this section, but especially this worksheet, before you complete the site preferences section in TEIS. Complete this worksheet and have it with you when you fill out your TEIS application.
Note: Once you fill in the "Site Preferences" section in TEIS and hit the submit button, you will no longer have access to that screen. Any changes you may want to make will have to be done through our office.
If you need more information on Indiana schools, use this link to the Indiana School Directory.
Directions:Please list four (4) choices, #1 being the most preferred, where you would like to student teach. Your choices must include at least two different counties. (Two counties could be the same, but the third must be different.) Be realistic about your choices, especially when requesting the Bloomington area, suburban Marion County, and other popular areas. Indicating a preferred grade level range or teacher is optional.
Semester: ________________ Year: ___________________
Major: ____________________________________________
Grade Preference:
- Pre-school
- Kindergarten
- K-6
- K-12
- 1-3
- 4-6
- Elementary
- 7-12
- Middle School
- High School
- No Preference
Site Preference for Your Licensure Area
Choice #1
County: _____________________________________________
School Corporation: _____________________________________
Choice #2
County: _____________________________________________
School Corporation: _____________________________________
Choice #3
County: _____________________________________________
School Corporation: _____________________________________
Choice #4
County: _____________________________________________
School Corporation: _____________________________________
Site Preference for Your Endorsement/Minor Area
Choice #1
County: _____________________________________________
School Corporation: _____________________________________
Choice #2
County: _____________________________________________
School Corporation: _____________________________________
Choice #3
County: _____________________________________________
School Corporation: _____________________________________
Choice #4
County: _____________________________________________
School Corporation: _____________________________________
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