bushes to get the applicants in the pool."

FOUR RECRUITERS use nearly a dozen ways to lure the best and the brightest to Loudoun County, the fastest growing county in the nation, he said. "We have a dynamic recruiting effort. We travel internationally. We go to colleges and universities all over the United States."

The recruiters interview and screen applicants before the principals conduct interviews and make recommendations. Britt's office makes the actual job offer to the candidates.

He said the toughest challenge is finding technology education — formerly called industrial arts, special education, Spanish, high-level mathematics and sciences, English as a Second Language, family and consumer science — formerly home economics, earth science and American Sign Language. On Monday, they still needed one technology education, one American Sign Language, andnine mathematics teachers.

Mary Kearney, director of Special Education, said she was short 31 special-education teachers out of the 140 new

positions she had to fill before school opens Sept. 7. Last year, she started school without 20 special-education teachers. She worked with Shenandoah University to prepare "career switchers" to close the gap. Teachers who were certified to instruct social studies, English or other subjects took two courses and became "provisionally certified" to teach special education, said Kearney. They were required to pass "Legal Trends in Special Education" and "Characteristics of Students of Disabilities" for the provisional certification, and nine to 10 courses over the next two years to become fully certified.

Kearney said there is an abundance of teachers who specialize in certain subjects, and they switch careers when they