Solving teacher shortages by converting other staff
MORGAN CITY, La. – Jenna Gros jangles as she walks the halls of Wyandotte Elementary School in St Mary’s Parish, Louisiana. The dozens of keys she carries while she sweeps, sprays, shelves and sorts make a loud sound, and when children hear her coming, they call out, “Miss Jenna!”
Gros is head custodian at Wyandotte, in this small town in southern Louisiana. She’s also a teacher in training.
In August 2020, she signed up for a new program designed to provide people working in school settings the chance to turn their job into an undergraduate degree in education at a low cost. There’s untapped potential among people who work in schools right now, as classroom aides, lunchroom workers, after-school staff and more, the thinking goes, and helping them become teachers could ease the shortage that’s dire in some districts around the country, particularly in rural areas.
In 2 1⁄2 years, the teacher training program, run by nonprofit Reach University, has grown from 50 applicants to about 1,000, with most coming from rural areas of Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama and California. The “apprenticeship degree” model costs students $75 dollars a month. The rest of the funding comes from Pell Grants and philanthropic donations. The classes, which are online, are taught by award-winning teachers, and districts must agree to have students work in the classroom for 15 hours a week as part of their training.
“We have overlooked a talent pool to our detriment,” said Joe Ross, president of the online Reach University. “These people have heart and they have the grit and they have the intelligence.”
Efforts to recruit teacher candidates from the local community date back to the 1990s, but programs have “exploded” in number over the past five years, said Danielle Edwards, assistant professor of educational leadership, policy and workforce development at Old Dominion University in Virginia. Some of these “grow your own” programs, like Reach’s, recruit school employees who don’t have college degrees or degrees in education, while others focus on retired professionals, military veterans, college students, and even K-12 students, with some starting as young as middle school.
“‘Grow your own’ has really caught on fire,” said Edwards, in part, because of research showing that about 85% of teachers teach within 40 miles of where they grew up. But while these programs are increasingly popular, she says it isn’t clear what the teacher outcomes are in terms of effectiveness or retention.
Nationwide, there are at least 36,500 teacher vacancies, along with approximately 163,000 positions held by underqualified teachers, according to estimates by Tuan Nguyen, an associate professor of education at Kansas State University. At Wyandotte, Principal Celeste Pipes has three uncertified teachers out of 26.
“We are pulling people literally off the streets to fill spots in a classroom,” she said. Parishes surrounding hers, which is 85 miles west of New Orleans, pay more than the starting salary of $46,000 she can offer; some even cover the cost of health insurance.
Reach University: Eliminating choice between jobs, degrees
Data suggests not having qualified teachers can worsen student achievement and increase costs for districts. An unstable workforce also affects the school culture, said Pipes: “Once we have people here that are... years and years in, we know how things are run.”
As Gros walks the hallways, she stops to swat a fly for a scared child, ties a first grader’s shoelaces and asks a third about math homework. Her colleagues had long noticed her calm, encouraging manner, and so, when a teacher’s aide at Wyandotte heard about Reach, she urged Gros to sign up with her.
Gros grew up in this town – her father worked as a mechanic in the oil rigs – and always wanted to be a teacher. But with three children and a salary of $22,000 a year, she couldn’t afford to do so. The low cost and logistics of Reach’s program made it possible: Her district agreed to her spending 15 hours of her work week in the classroom, mentoring or tutoring students. She takes her online classes at night or on weekends.
Employees are also in the retirement system, meaning the years they’ve already worked count toward their pension. For Gros, who has worked for 18 years in her school system, that was an important consideration, she said.
Pipes said people like Gros understand the vibe of this rural community – the importance of family, the focus on church and the love of hunting. And people with community roots are also less likely to leave, said Chandler Smith, the superintendent of West Baton Rouge Parish School System.
His district is the second-highest paying in the state but still struggles to attract and retain teachers: It saw a 15% teacher turnover rate last year. Now, it has 29 candidates through Reach.
In West Baton Rouge Parish, Jackie Noble is walking back into the Brusly Elementary school building at 6:45 p.m. She’d finished her workday as a teacher’s aide around 3:30 p.m., then babysat her granddaughter for a few hours, spent time with her husband, and picked up a McDonald’s order of chicken nuggets, a large coffee and a Coke to get her through her evening classes. Some Reach classes go until 11 p.m.
Noble was a bus driver in this area for five years, but she longed to be a teacher. When she mustered the courage to research options for joining the profession, she learned it would cost somewhere between $5,000 to $15,000 a year over at least four years. “I wasn’t even financially able to pay for my transcript because it was going to cost me almost $100,” she said.
When Noble heard about Reach and the monthly tuition of $75 a month, she said, “My mouth hit the floor.”
Ross, of Reach University, said he often hears some variation of: “I had to choose between a job and a degree.”
“What if we eliminate the question?” he said. “Let’s turn jobs into degrees.”
Hoping the numbers work
In May, Reach graduated its first class of teachers, a group of 13 students from Louisiana who had prior credits. The organization’s first full cohort will walk across the stage in spring 2024.
There are promising signs. Nationwide, about half of teacher candidates pass their state’s teaching licensure exam; more than 60% of the 13 Reach graduates did. All of them had a job waiting for them, not only in their local community but in the building where they’d been working.
But Roddy Theobald, deputy director of the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research and researcher at the American Institutes for Research, says far more research is needed on “grow your own” programs.
One of the challenges is that the programs rarely target the specific needs of schools, he said.
Doubling her salary
A straight-A student since her first semester, head custodian Gros expects to graduate without any debt in May 2024. She expects to teach at this same elementary school. At that point, her salary will almost double.
She said she loves how a teacher can shape a child’s future for the better. “That’s what a teacher is – a nurturer trying to provide them with the resources that they are going to need for later on in life.
“I think I can be that person,” she said. She pauses. “I know I can.”
This story about grow your own programs was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.