CLARKSDALE — Clarksdale had the second highest teacher shortage in Mississippi last year — 40 posted vacancies in July. 

For district administrators, that staffing challenge hits particularly hard each year in late summer when they try to fill vacancies before the new school year begins. The problem affects students, too, when they’re taught by substitute teachers for weeks at a time. 

Clarksdale schools leaders have also tried a solution that researchers and think tanks suggest: Identifying potential teachers early — before they even graduate high school. This approach also in local teacher workforces, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality.

Nearly half of Mississippi public school students are Black, but about a quarter of their teachers are, according to . The gap has only shrunk by roughly one and a half points in the last 10 years.

“We cannot continue to work in the education arena like it’s a factory putting out the next product,” said Adrienne Hudson, who runs Clarksdale-based nonprofit organization , which assists aspiring educators with licensure requirements. “As we can see in the numbers, we don’t have enough products. The supply and demand are not matching.” 

“We have to do better at cultivating the educators in our schools and communities.”

Cultivating educators in the community would also address disparities between the demographics of teachers and their students. 

 A way ‘to change kids’ lives’

One way the district is trying to cultivate educators is through a vocational educator preparation class Candace Barron teaches at Clarksdale Municipal School District’s Carl Keen Career and Technical Education center. 

Triccia Hudson, the center’s director, had the goal of widening the pipeline for future educators in Clarksdale. She first recruited Barron to teach the course during the 2021-2022 school year.

“You don’t see as many families of educators any more,” Hudson said. “It was clear to me that aspiring teachers needed more mentorship.”

More than a dozen Clarksdale students are getting a feel for a career well known to them: teaching. In a classroom once devoted to a cosmetology course, students are learning how to plan lessons, manage classrooms and about the different roles in a school district.

In Barron’s course, students start their first semester learning about the origins of public education. The introductory lectures fascinate students.

It was interesting to learn that it’s always been about helping people by “spreading information,” Clarksdale High School sophomore Khloe Reed said.

Beyond having the opportunity to join a profession that predates the country’s founding, students in Barron’s class say they are drawn to education because of their lived experiences in their community. 

Barron has observed that high school-aged students understand the obstacles facing their fellow students and are in a good position to learn skills teachers employ to educate and inspire developing minds.

For sophomore Leah Myles, helping kids with learning disabilities inspired her to take the course. She saw how her brother struggled with his reading lessons, and she was moved “to learn how to help students like him.”

Sophomore Jamarick Davis said education has the power to “change kids’ lives.” He remembers his assistant teachers fondly and saw the impact a good teacher can have on a student who struggles in the classroom and at home — and might act out in class for attention.

Davis’ favorite teacher never seems to be in a bad mood despite challenges that educators face outside and inside the classroom.

Some students come from teacher families, while others admire alumni who entered the profession. All were aware that a teacher’s role involves more than what is in the textbook. 

As Reed put it, teachers are a positive role model in a young person’s life. Myles said teachers help students by challenging them, and demonstrating how they care.

“Teachers play a very important role in our community because without them, we wouldn’t really know anything,” said Reed. “It wouldn’t be a very lively life if you didn’t know anything at all. 

22 years in the classroom

Candace Barron has taught elementary school for 18 years and high school for four, but she still lights up with admiration when a student grasps a new concept or demonstrates eloquence. 

The Clarksdale native has taught hundreds of students and seen her corner of the world regress and progress from under the fluorescent bulbs in Clarksdale’s city classrooms.

When she graduated college, Barron followed in her parents’ steps when she became a teacher. She realized how important empathy was to a teacher whose classroom has students from various households and skill levels. 

“I do have bad days, but I try not to bring it to work,” Barron said. “I don’t know what (students) have been through at home and I don’t want to add to that by coming in and bringing my problems. So I come in, I have my game face on, I’m going to do what we have to do.”

That dedication matters as the teacher shortage has gotten worse in Clarksdale in the past year. 

“We really have lost a lot of the efforts that were put in place to combat the teacher storage crisis, ” Adrienne Hudson said. “Many of the scholarship incentives that used to be prevalent and professional development opportunities no longer exist.”

Barron said she believes the program can ignite students’ interest in an education career. The lessons give students the confidence and skillset to pursue careers where communication and project management are components — even those who don’t end up pursuing education, Barron said.

One student told Barron the class helped her with a speech impediment. The student felt more confident delivering presentations, and began to imagine careers that she felt discouraged from pursuing previously. 

“At this age, they’re still trying to decide what they want to do. So the more you expose them to every different area, it’ll help them decide,” Barron said.

Outside of the state-approved curriculum and textbook, students learn the art of crafting classroom bulletin boards. Fewer craft projects conjure as much nostalgia and appreciation. Some teachers spend hours with a ruler and yards of colored construction paper decorating their classroom in late July before school starts.

Creativity is the key to a successful poster board, Barron said. One student was inspired to construct a data wall with construction paper made to look like wood, while another put together a yellow bulletin board with crayons bearing the name of students. 

“I really hope that by the end of the program that they feel like they can make an impact on somebody’s life by becoming a teacher or getting into the education field,” said Barron. “That is my hope. So all of the negatives that they hear, I hope that I can dismiss some of them. 

“Students tell me at the end of (the course), they want to be successful like teachers.”

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

However, what if the right fit isn’t in that ever-shrinking stack of resumes or on a headhunter’s candidate list? Maybe it’s an educator already in the ranks who has the potential to be an innovative leader and changemaker but isn’t on a traditional path toward superintendency. 

The leadership shortage crisis isn’t going to be solved anytime soon — and if anything, it has the potential to get worse over the next few years. It’s essential that today’s administrators and education leaders rethink how they recruit and prepare prospects. But more importantly, they must create a network of support that elevates talented educators into fearless trailblazers with a clear vision for students’ futures.

As new superintendents who followed different trajectories into our current roles and are working to uplift the incredible educators coming up behind us, we have benefited from three major movements that are reshaping talent development in our field.

Identify, Inspire and Encourage Educators to Find Their Inner Leader

Sometimes, school districts inadvertently set up roadblocks to leadership roles by requiring candidates to exceed professional credentials beyond those set by their state’s principal and superintendent licensure programs. Instead of investing in those who show promise, they tap someone with a doctorate in education but less applicable experience.

Because the bank of qualified candidates continues to clear out, district leaders need to disrupt the current model. Long-term succession plans can no longer stop at current administrators and principals — districts must identify and nurture educators with leadership potential who may not yet recognize how their talents can drive districtwide change.

To do this, districts must create a clear coaching model to raise educators from teacher leader to executive leader. By offering ongoing coaching and mentoring, involving promising educators in strategic planning sessions and providing them with additional responsibilities (and pay!) that align with their interests, districts can equip the next generation of leaders with invaluable skills and experience.

For example, in the Rush-Henrietta district in New York, we are creating professional learning communities that connect new principals and assistant principals with a mentor to help navigate the first year in office. Mentors attend a training session before the start of the school year and provide support to the new leader throughout the year via one-on-one meetings and a quarterly roundtable discussion with all new administrators and mentors. These networks can promote an to discover how to maintain board relationships, develop a shared mission for their district and hone leadership skills such as building a strategic plan.

Ensure the Path to Leadership is an Equitable One

When students see themselves in their school leaders, they feel . Yet, there continue to be a lack of representation and ongoing equity issues in superintendency. 

In K-12, , but of students do. Aspiring leaders of color need unfettered access to mentor-led learning communities to help them break through barriers, such as having their ability questioned by administrators because of their race, as they prepare for new roles. Once they get the job, mentors can help leaders of color stand up to the challenges of navigating fraught district politics. These connections are especially critical if there’s a lack of diverse leadership development opportunities in their districts.

District administrators and school board members must also ensure that the leadership pipeline is free from bias. Beginning at the teacher level, there should be equitable opportunities and support for leadership development. This could include partnering with organizations that match educators of color with leaders of color for mentorship. Gaining this outside perspective helps develop leaders by providing a confidential and safe place to exchange ideas while broadening their professional network. Most importantly, current leaders must be allies, in the face of community resistance to policy changes or discussions of race and identity.

Leadership development programs should articulate a strategic direction geared at improving student outcomes. By developing a strategy rooted in equitable learning opportunities, cultural belonging and justice, with clear student outcomes at the center, districts can ensure that promotions, growth opportunities and learning communities are based on merit, not racial biases.

Connect Aspiring Leaders to One Another

Leadership can be isolating, and a circle of trusted confidants can quickly grow small. As we worked our way up to superintendency, it was important to embrace a cohort of mentors and peers from diverse backgrounds and districts who shared our vision and provided us with skills and resources we could take back home.

We continue to stay connected to our ever-expanding community through both traditional learning environments and informal coaching sessions. This helps us find the clarity needed to tackle the complexities of a rewarding, yet sometimes overwhelming, career. It’s important for all aspiring leaders to have a safe space where they are welcome to brainstorm ideas, problem-solve complex challenges facing their districts and learn how to navigate the power structures within their particular communities.

Administrators should encourage aspiring leaders to participate in national professional professional development and workshops. This can help them take the next step in their careers by providing an empowering space to find mentorship and build on their leadership skills — and bring those skills back to their districts.

K-12 continues to see high turnover rates of educators at all levels, with few plans in place to keep its foundation from crumbling. If school districts refuse to alter the status quo — to cultivate their own leaders rather than invest resources into recruiting the same people other districts are competing for — the hiring gap isn’t going to close anytime soon. There is incredible talent in classrooms right now waiting to be tapped. District administrators just need to communicate to future leaders that they see something great in them.

The COVID pandemic — the topic that has dominated education conversations for the past three years — is largely missing from the State of the State addresses that governors are delivering to their legislatures this winter. 

Instead, state leaders are using their bully pulpits to call for bigger investments in early learning and in the transition into the workforce and college. They are supporting better pay for public school teachers while pushing for public money to flow to private schools, which could ultimately make it more difficult to fund public school pay increases. 

FutureEd speeches and partnered with ����Ӱ�� to convert our analysis into a series of interactive maps. We found that despite the academic gaps exposed in last year’s National Assessment for Educational Progress scores, there was surprisingly little talk of learning loss and efforts to catch students up. There was also little explicit “culture war” rhetoric around teaching racial history or banning books — and more lofty talk about the value of education.

“Education is a great equalizer in our society,” said Democratic Gov. Janet Mills in her Feb. 14 address to the Maine legislature. “Every child, regardless of where they live, deserves a world-class education that will prepare them for a successful adulthood.”

Here are some of the topics trending among the nation’s governors this year:

(Click here if you are having trouble viewing maps)

Teaching Profession

The teaching profession was a top priority across party lines, with 24 governors discussing ways to improve pay and support educators. Most of those governors proposed raising salaries, largely in response to shortages in their states but also as a way to recognize the important role teachers play. 

In Kentucky, Democratic Gov. Andrew Beshear is supporting an across-the-board 5% pay hike, which he called “both vital and necessary to address Kentucky’s shortage of nearly 11,000 public school teachers.” Idaho Republican Gov. Brad Little also pledged to increase salaries — both for starting teachers and for all instructors — by an average of $6,300 annually because “students and their families deserve quality teachers who are respected and compensated competitively.”

South Carolina Republican Gov. Henry McMaster took a different approach, offering both salary increases and one-time $2,500 retention bonuses, paid out in two installments. Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin wants to provide retention bonuses as well as $50 million in performance-based compensations. Republican state leaders began supporting teacher pay hikes in response to against low pay in red states in the years before the pandemic — perhaps realizing that many rank-and-file teachers in their states are Republicans, even though teacher unions, favorite Republican political foils, lean left.

Governors also pitched additional strategies to address recruitment and retention challenges. Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore is pushing legislation to strengthen the teacher pipeline with loan forgiveness, fellowships and grow-your-own programs. Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is proposing grants to help paraprofessionals become teachers. Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo is adding $30 million to provide stipends and tuition for student teachers. And in Wisconsin, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers announced plans to invest more than $20 million in recruiting, developing, and retaining teachers and student teachers.

School Choice

Unlike the bipartisan support for teacher compensation, the school choice proposals in 15 State of the State addresses nearly all came from Republican governors. The only Democratic governor to broach the subject, Arizona’s Katie Hobbs, pledged to provide more accountability for a broad expansion of education savings accounts that her predecessor pushed through the legislature. “Any school that accepts taxpayer dollars should have to abide by the same accountability standards that all district schools do,” she said. 

Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds proposed, and has since signed, a measure that would provide nearly $8,000 in state funding to each family who sends their child to a private school — the same amount the state provides for each public school student. “Every parent should have a choice of where to send their child — and that choice shouldn’t be limited to families who can afford it,” she said. Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine proposed expanding eligibility for the state’s voucher program to include middle-class families. He also proposed increasing funding for charter schools.

Some governors emphasized the importance of parents in making educational decisions for their children, including Idaho’s Little, who plans to make permanent a grant program that helps families pay for such educational expenses as computers, instructional materials and tutoring.

While school choice programs open to all students, like those in Iowa and Arizona, are drawing much of the attention — and criticism — this year, governors in Nebraska and South Dakota have focused specifically on children in need, including those in foster care or living in poverty.

Curriculum and Instruction

With support for the “science of reading” sweeping the country, governors are responding with calls for explicit, evidence-based reading instruction. “The evidence is clear. The verdict is in. There is a great deal of research about how we learn to read. And today, we understand the great value and importance of phonics,” said Ohio’s DeWine, one of 11 governors who mentioned literacy in their speeches; altogether, 19 proposed some sort of curriculum initiatives or restrictions.

Some governors, such as Iowa’s Reynolds, are focusing on training teachers to implement reading initiatives. Youngkin called for extending the use of reading specialists under the Virginia Literacy Act to fifth grade.

In Wisconsin, Evers announced a $20 million investment to increase literacy programming and implement evidence-based reading practices. He, along with Youngkin and Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, also proposed investments in high-quality math curricula, training and support. 

In Nevada, Lombardo wants to reinstate a rule holding back students who aren’t reading proficiently, and Indiana Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb is proposing to reward schools that improve their third-grade reading results. 

This focus on literacy and academic initiatives marks a big shift from last year, when culture wars and critical race theory were prominent in the State of the State addresses. Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves is one of the exceptions, with comments on gender and sexuality. “There is no room in our schools for policies that attempt to undercut parents and require the usage of pronouns or names that fail to correspond with reality,” he said in proposing a Parents’ Bill of Rights requiring schools to “adhere to the will of the parents” on such matters.

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott framed his push for education savings accounts as a way to empower parents and to fight “woke agendas” and “indoctrination.” Likewise, West Virginia Republican Gov. Jim Justice voiced support for “parents’ rights” by directing school districts to make all curricula available online, “where we can see every single thing that’s being put into our little kids’ heads.”

In Illinois, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker spoke out against restricting what’s taught in schools, saying it undermines historic investments in education. “It’s all meaningless if we become a nation that bans books from school libraries about racism suffered by Roberto Clemente and Hank Aaron, and tells kids they can’t talk about being gay, and signals to Black and brown people and Asian Americans and Jews and Muslims that our authentic stories can’t be told,” he said.

Higher Education

College affordability emerged as a top priority among the 23 governors who mentioned higher education, but their proposed solutions differed across party lines. Governors from both parties called for expanded scholarship programs, but only Republicans — from South Carolina, Utah and Virginia — called for tuition freezes. GOP governors were also the only ones to mention repairing aging campus buildings, with proposed investments ranging from $65 million in Nevada to $275 million in Missouri. 

New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham touted her state’s program that provides free public higher education to all state residents, and Illinois’s Pritzker pledged another $100 million for scholarships helping to make community college free for eligible students. Others pushed for expanded scholarship programs: Arizona’s Hobbs is allocating $40 million to create the Promise for DREAMers Scholarship Program, while North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum is doubling his state’s investment in the Native American Scholarship program. Governors in other states, including Montana, Georgia and Hawaii, emphasized the need for expanded scholarships and programs to encourage students to become health care providers. 

Several governors proposed using these investments to encourage students to stay in their state for college and ideally, for their careers. Indiana’s Holcomb pitched a $184 million increase in higher education funding to reward universities “for keeping their graduates in careers in our state. After all, Indiana’s college campuses need to be the epicenters of brain gain — not brain drain!” Nebraska Republican Gov. Jim Pillen offered $39.4 million to fund over 4,200 scholarships for Nebraska students attending school in state.

Workforce Development

At least 29 governors across the political spectrum voiced support for improving students’ career readiness, including through apprenticeships and dual-enrollment programs. 

Virginia’s Youngkin hopes to accelerate dual-enrollment partnerships between high schools and community colleges so that eventually, “every child graduates with an industry recognized credential.” Kentucky’s Beshear announced a $245 million investment to renovate and rebuild career and technical centers in high schools. And Colorado’s Polis argued for career-connected learning in high school. 

Apprenticeships were a large focus, with Iowa’s Reynolds increasing funding for health care apprenticeships, Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Parson expanding apprenticeships in areas such as information technology and public safety, and Montana Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte doubling the Trades Education Credit. Wisconsin’s Evers is connecting apprenticeships to other initiatives, including through a $10 million investment in clean energy job training and reemployment.

Early Education

Even as Congress failed to fund early care and early education in , 20 governors from both parties made the early years a priority in their speeches. 

Pritzker announced a broad Smart Start Illinois plan to expand access to pre-K and child care, help build new facilities and ramp up home visiting programs for young families. While only Democratic governors — including those in Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and New Mexico — discussed the need for universal pre-K, several Republican governors also advocated for expanding early learning and child care options, particularly better access for kids from low-income families. For example, Missouri’s Parson is planning to invest $56 million to expand pre-K options for low-income children, and Nevada’s Lombardo is providing $60 million for similar efforts. 

Governors are also calling for bureaucratic changes: New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to make it easier for eligible parents to access child care assistance, saying, “Less than 10% of families who are eligible … are actually enrolled. This is the legacy of a system that is difficult to navigate — by design. That has to change.” Similarly, South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem said her state would work with providers to overhaul rules and regulations. 

Mental Health

Sixteen governors acknowledged the rise in  post-pandemic and the need to expand access to services, particularly for children and teens. Some focused specifically on school-based services, while others supported community-based approaches.

Several Democratic governors called for increasing the number of school counselors, psychologists and social workers, including Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who is proposing to expand Mental Health Intervention Teams in schools. In Wisconsin, Evers announced he is investing more than $270 million to allow every district to expand school-based mental health services.

Though largely a priority among Democrats, mental health also came up in a few Republican speeches: Missouri’s Parson proposed an additional $3.5 million for more youth behavioral-health liaisons, and Ohio’s DeWine hopes to address the shortage of pediatric behavioral-health professionals and facilities. 

While the culture wars and other divisive political issues continue to play out in schools and colleges, it is perhaps encouraging to see significant numbers of state leaders from both parties proposing pragmatic policy responses to teacher shortages, student mental health needs, low reading scores and other systemic challenges facing the nation’s educators.

Maps by ����Ӱ��’s Meghan Gallagher

Teaching residencies have exploded in popularity in recent years, with the National Center for Teacher Residencies’ network nearly since 2018. Nationwide, at least 2,025 candidates are enrolled in residencies this school year, a sharp increase from the 792 four years ago — with 57% of candidates being people of color. By comparison, just of the nation’s teaching staff is made up of educators who are not white.   

Maryland, Texas, Missouri, Nevada, Georgia and Tennessee are among states using federal funds to boost recruitment via community-focused grow-your-own programs, according to a from the Education Trust. 

The residencies and grow your own models are and advocates as promising ways to recruit and retain teaching candidates and lower financial barriers to enter the profession as some regions are urgently looking to fill vacancies. The models are considered a far cry from other certification programs run by organizations which sometimes provide just weeks of training before new teachers are responsible for their own classrooms, and often result in higher turnover.

A 2019 report from the Learning Policy Institute and UCLA found the residency model, “holds promise for both recruiting diverse individuals and retaining effective teachers.” 

Grow-your-own programs in particular target staff already working in schools, a more diverse group than current teachers, who often have a . This includes individuals such as parent volunteers or paraprofessionals, said Meg Caven, an education sociologist with the Education Development Center, a global health and education nonprofit.

“How do you create a career ladder for the adults who are more likely to be folks of color,” said Caven, “from those uncertified positions into the classroom?” 

Some may have had years of experience with students as education assistants, as is the case with many of . The 300-plus cohort now in the two-year program receive paid leave to complete bachelor’s degree coursework and coaching to pursue licensure. Currently, 17 are building experience as instructional aids in Zuni Public schools.

“And the majority of those are local individuals who are part of the Zuni Pueblo, and so that is a move to begin to have more representation in our classrooms,” said Amber Romero, program director. , though at least of public students statewide are Native American.

The efforts come at a critical moment, particularly as rural and urban districts face acute shortages in special education, math, foreign language and English language learner positions. Early analysis of states’ American Rescue Plan funding revealed staffing to be a priority nationwide. 

are among the 27 nationally utilizing a State Department program to welcome foreign language exchange teachers this fall, sponsoring teachers’ travel, salary, and living expenses. 

South Carolina and Iowa are looking to another force already entrenched in classrooms: . South Carolina’s Teaching Fellows Program, funded by $1.2 million in relief aid, provides up to $6,000 in annual scholarships for young people pursuing teaching careers. Nineteen in Iowa will support high school students and existing paraeducators in earning credentials through the state’s “Earn & Learn” Registered Apprenticeship. 

The strategy — recruiting younger adults to stay in their community — is appealing for states with large rural populations, where shortages are even more severe. Roughly said too few candidates applied to vacancies for the 2022-23 school year. 

“Part of the problem in Pennsylvania is we have teacher preparation program deserts, where it might be four counties over to the nearest college, so if you send somebody to college, they may never come back,” said Ed Fuller, education and professor at Pennsylvania State University. “They may want to stay near their college, so [districts] have been trying to recruit their own K-12 students. But that’s a long-term solution.” 

In California’s rural central valley, serving many students in poverty has seemingly combined approaches — seeding interest among high schoolers, launching a grow-your-own program for staff and a residency program for recent grads. Lindsay Unified’s yearlong residency supports educators to complete a master’s in teaching and full credential.

Staff and students can have their loans forgiven after teaching in Lindsay for 5 years; 120 have taken them up on the offer. 

Apart from encouraging growth in the pipeline, the interpersonal benefits of residencies have impacted communities for years. 

CREATE, a three-year residency hosted by Georgia State University since 2015, has seen of new Black teachers stay in the profession by their fifth year, the point at which .

Because residencies are grounded in their specific local context, programs can dig deep to understand what priorities are for families and schools in the district as opposed to a whole state. Seattle, for instance, hones elementary teachers to support Title I schools serving high proportions of students in poverty. 

“Providing a fellowship and stipend to these future educators opens doors to teachers who would not have been able to acquire the appropriate classroom credentials otherwise,” said founding director of the Seattle Teacher Residency Marisa Bier. “This work has proven imperative in bridging the demographic divide between teachers and students by recruiting and retaining BIPOC educators in the Seattle community.”

New York University’s one-year residency, which has grown from about 12 prospective educators in 2016 to now 160, similarly stays focused on districts’ and families’ priorities. About half of their current cohort are specializing in special education and many more are seeking TESOL certification because of NYC’s student population and priorities.  

“It’s sort of a needs-based shuffle,” said professor and residency co-director Frank Pignatosi. At NYU, as with many higher-ed housed residencies, there is no GRE requirement for applicants. The decision is intentional, an acknowledgement of the resources, financial and otherwise, involved. 

The reality is not lost on New Mexico’s Romero, who supports educator assistants exceptional at their work, eager to become teachers, yet navigating economic and family realities. 

“Many of them are women of color. Many of them are mothers and so they don’t have the luxury of not working and going to school. They have to have this job for the benefits,” she said. “And then they can only take one or two classes at night while they’re trying to raise a family.” 

Stipends, personalized professional development, and social support can make all the difference for prospective educators looking for a way in, and for the districts eager to receive them. 

“It doesn’t make it easy,” Romero said, “but it certainly makes it possible.”

Rosemely Osorio is swiftly becoming the educator that, years ago, she wished for.

When, at age 9, she and her family came to Rhode Island from Guatemala, Osorio recalls struggling academically as she navigated an unfamiliar system.

“When I came here and I started at the schools, I remember, I didn’t know how to speak any English. … I didn’t have a mentor who told me, ‘Hey, it’s really important that you work extremely hard in high school so then your GPA is good.’ I didn’t know what a GPA was,” she said.

In 2014, she graduated high school, the first in her family to accomplish the feat, but college remained out of reach because of finances and her immigration status — Osorio is a DACA recipient, the Obama-era program that provides deportation relief and work permits to undocumented residents brought here as children.

Now, years later as an adult learner in College Unbound and the Equity Institute’s TA to BA program, she’s just a semester away from earning her bachelor’s degree and teaching certification, key steps toward becoming exactly the role model she yearned for as a young person. At the same time, she works as a paraprofessional in the Central Falls high school she once attended, which serves a high share of Central American immigrant students.

“They see in me someone that they can count on,” said Osorio. “They’re like, ‘Oh, she knows how to speak Spanish. She looks Hispanic. So I can actually talk to her.’”

After only two years in operation, the teacher training program that opened doors for Osorio has scaled up more than six times beyond its original capacity and is launching cohorts in a second city, with talks underway to expand to a third, leaders say.

“The program has grown pretty tremendously,” said Carlon Howard, who helped launch the TA to BA fellowship and is chief impact officer at the Equity Institute. “There’s a lot of interest in initiatives such as these given that, across our country, schools and districts are challenged to find enough educators to staff their buildings.”

The Rhode Island program, which served 13 fellows in its inaugural 2020-21 class, will train 75 paraprofessionals this year. Two new, 10-student cohorts will launch in Philadelphia, where College Unbound already operates other programs, thanks to funding from the school district. Over 40 people remain on the waiting list, said David Bromley, College Unbound’s Philadelphia coordinator. In nearby Camden, New Jersey, the college is working with the teachers union to roll out programs there, too, he added.

“Investing deeply in our staff who already work closely with our students to bring them to the next stage of their career is a shining light of positivity in the midst of a difficult few years,” Larisa Shambaugh, chief of talent for Philadelphia public schools, said in an emailed statement to ����Ӱ��.

‘Untapped talent’

Many paraprofessionals are highly skilled educators with years or even decades of classroom experience, Howard said, but still may feel like they have a “glass ceiling above their head” because they lack college degrees and financial resources.

Participants in the fellowship often study tuition-free thanks to the Equity institute’s “last dollar” scholarships covering costs not offset by federal Pell grants.

“We target folks who already work with kids … and all we’re trying to do is help them realize their greatest potential,” Howard said.

TAs are an “untapped talent” pool from which to recruit and train high-quality educators, agreed David Donaldson, managing partner for the National Center for Grown Your Own educator pipeline programs.

Students take two College Unbound courses a semester, scheduled outside of the work day, plus a lab component specifically geared to prepare them to lead a classroom. Thanks to a process at the college for measuring and awarding credits for prior learning experiences, some students are able to take an accelerated path to graduation. Osorio, for example, will finish in under two years.

“It’s been a lot of work,” she admits, cramming in classes while also working full time and taking care of family responsibilities. “But I don’t regret it.”

Addressing diversity, combatting shortages

Educators like Osorio — those who reflect their students culturally and linguistically — are in short supply in Rhode Island’s schools and nationwide. Roughly 1 in 10 teachers in the Ocean State are people of color while 4 in 10 students identify as Black, Hispanic, Indigenous or Asian. Meanwhile, educators of color and those who speak multiple languages improve outcomes for all students, but provide a particular boost to students whose identities they match, research shows.

Classroom aides, on the other hand, tend to be much more racially and linguistically diverse than teachers. The positions generally do not require a college degree and can be more accessible to people from low-income backgrounds. All her fellow teaching assistants, Osorio said, speak Spanish and the vast majority are people of color, whereas the teachers at her school are predominantly white and speak only English.

“To be honest, everything we see is all these teachers in the classrooms with a bunch of Hispanic kids, but the teacher doesn’t speak their language,” said Osorio. “That’s what my biggest motivation was to apply and getting certified was that students need teachers in the classroom that they can relate to.”

David Quiroa is joining the TA to BA fellowship this fall and works as a paraprofessional in his home community of Newport, Rhode Island.

“So many TAs who are in the [Black, Indigenous and people of color] community already have been putting in the work for several years … and they’re never given the opportunity to pursue higher education,” he said. “With TA to BA and College Unbound, it really is showing these communities, ‘Look, we are here, we are federally approved, we have all of the accreditations, we have so (many) established connections here in our community. You guys have been doing the work. We just want to give you your proper salary.’”

Meanwhile, districts across the country are facing acute staffing shortages and going to extreme lengths — including tapping college students or dangling $25,000 bonuses — to entice new hires.

In this climate, the grow-your-own approach is “getting a lot of attention now,” Donaldson said, even though turning to programs that provide a work-based pipeline to train new teachers is a longer-term solution.

His organization recently announced that seven states with existing or emerging apprenticeship programs to train educators launched an all-new National Registered Apprenticeship in Teaching Network. It comes on the heels of a June announcement from Education Secretary Miguel Cardona urging states to invest in grow-your-own programs, including those that begin in high school and with apprenticeship programs.

“Missouri, like other states, is struggling to address staffing issues created by teacher shortages. The Teacher Apprenticeship is an additional, innovative model to help address this issue,” Paul Katnik, Missouri’s assistant education commissioner, said in a release after the network was announced.

The other participating states are California, Florida, North Dakota, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming.

‘We got you’

The relationship faculty build with participants is a secret to the program’s success in Rhode Island, and soon in the new Philadelphia cohorts, fellowship leaders and students say.

Osorio’s advisor “has played a big role in the way that I have been able to develop in this program,” said the College Unbound student. In addition to checking in academically and emotionally, the faculty member who runs her teaching lab class allowed Osorio to make up credits when she fell behind after a devastating miscarriage. And when Osorio was short on cash to renew her Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status and fearing she would lose her work permit, she again asked for help.

“Don’t worry about it. We got you,” was the response from College Unbound. “And they actually sent me a check home so I could pay for that application.”

That support is by design, said Howard, who explained that the program trains its faculty to uplift participants and be there for them. Even as the fellowship scales up, he’s confident the family-like culture among cohorts will remain.

The TA to BA leader believes it’s within the program’s reach to train 200 paraprofessionals into full-time teachers in the next three to five years. If all goes according to plan, he hopes to serve 500 by 2030 and may also add a high school teaching apprenticeship component.

Quiroa, the Newport TA, is “thrilled” about the expansion, he said, because there are “absolutely” others in his field who could benefit from the opportunity. “Having this organization, this program, thrive … I think is the best thing we can do to move forward and break a lot of these inequities.”

Osorio, for her part, can visualize the impact that seeing someone like her at the helm of a classroom could have for immigrant students. Hispanic role models were vital in her professional life after graduating high school, she said, and now she can finally pass on the favor.

“I get how important mentors are so now I can be that for those students.”