TEACH TODAY PROGRAM PROVIDING NEW APPROACH
Every school district across the country could use more teachers in classrooms, and the Fort Morgan School District RE-3 is no exception.
The Teach Today Program is providing an alternative route to get teachers into classrooms swiftly at Fort Morgan Schools.
Last fall, Fort Morgan was approved as a designated agency to run an alternative licensure program, according to Fort Morgan District Re-3 Director of Alternative Licensure Programs, Jen Kral.
“This is very new and very exciting for teachers and for communities across Northeast Colorado,” she said.
Kral said Fort Morgan usually has 10 alternative teachers each year, so district officials decided it would be best to designate itself as an agency so it can offer the in-house program called Teach Today.
“It’s a two-year program with the idea of that you get the content—the methods of teaching—while you teach,” Kral said. “That’s what designated agencies are.”
A bachelor’s is required to enroll in the program.
Kral described Teach Today as a fast track to licensure, but moreover, it’s geared towards keeping people in the community while they obtain licensure. Kral also described the program as a possible career change.
She gave an example of a business owner, who has a master’s degree but decided to change their career to become a teacher. Teach Today would get that business owner in a classroom to teach business, but along the way, they’d get training to officially become a licensed teacher. Or, for people like Nolan George, who find themselves fresh out of college but don’t quite know what to do next, Teach Today
can give them an opportunity they may or may not have thought about.
“I graduated in the summer (of 2022) and I didn’t really know exactly what I wanted to do job-wise,” George said.
George graduated from the University of Colorado with a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and said he had thoughts of becoming a teacher, but he didn’t want to return to school to go through the tradi
tional way of obtaining the licensure. He found a connection to the Teach Today program through one of his former teachers who had gone through the program themselves, and George soon found himself in touch with Kral.
He’s currently teaching at Weld Central High School. Even though the program is housed in Fort Morgan, neighboring districts can take part. George said Kral comes into his classroom periodically to check in with him, while also calling every few weeks as well.
There’s a “boot camp” enrollees partake in before entering the classroom for the first time.
“Overall, I’m very much enjoying the program,” he said. “My biggest takeaways that have been the most impactful to helping me teach is just the feedback and the program giving me additional resources.”
George said Kral wants them to all succeed at this.
“She’s very clear that she’s there to help us and make us better teachers so that our lives are easier,” he said.
For more information and to fill out an application visit https://www. morgan.k12.co.us/domain/1488