Last year Dan Kassel, 32, was an attorney for the Baltimore City Police Department, but this fall, he'll be a 10th-grade biology teacher at Annapolis High School.

"I always thought about teaching," he said. "I felt like it's a profession where you really, truly can make a difference."

While the typical new teacher comes to Anne Arundel schools fresh out of college, some of this year's recruits reflect a growing effort by the schools to hire career changers. Faced with a national teacher shortage, schools everywhere are looking for recruits - county schools hire hundreds each year - in increasingly nontraditional...