 September PESB Educator Pathways Newsletter
Greetings!
We are pleased to share our monthly newsletter from
the Pathways Team at the Professional Educator Standards Board. The Pathways team focuses on educator
workforce development, with specific attention to diversifying the workforce to better
reflect the student population, addressing teacher shortage, and supporting
navigation of pathways into the education profession.
A LOT has happened over the summer, and we have
rounded up some key highlights and articles ranging from the implementation of new legislation, new
efforts and teacher programs for paraeducators and bilingual teachers, and upcoming
innovative programming and grants focused on equity and diversity.
We hope this helps you gain a deeper understanding
of workforce development efforts underway by the PESB, and look forward to
sharing our newsletter again next month.
Best,
Alexandra Manuel
Deputy Director
GROWING ACCESS TO TEACHER PREP PROGRAMS
Over the past year Washington State’s seen a
significant increase in providers offering teacher preparation programs. The
expansion of providers has created new access points and pathways into
teaching. With this, we’ve also seen
significant expansion of alternative routes to teaching, which can often be a
better fit for paraeducators and diverse candidates.
Here are
some key facts to know:
- Nearly 200 additional alternative route to
teaching program slots are anticipated to be offered this year from new
providers approved since 2016.
- Since January 2016, six community colleges have
become accredited and approved to offer teacher preparation programs – Pierce
College, Highline College, Centralia College, Grays Harbor College, and Yakima
Valley College – offering streamlined pathways for community college students
into teaching. Read more here and
here.
- This past July, the first Educational Service
District - ESD 112 – was approved to offer a teacher preparation program and
alternative route program in close partnership with the districts it serves. Read more here.
- In July, Eastern Washington University and
Highline College were approved to offer alternative routes to teaching
programs.
THE PARAEDUCATOR BOARD: Why it's important and what it will do
The Paraeducator Board was established this past legislative
session and will be administered by the PESB.
Increasing attention has focused
on pathways for paraeducators as a key workforce development strategy, as paras
are significantly more diverse than teachers in Washington State, and are also
more likely to be from the communities that students are from. This has several
implications not only for closing opportunity gaps for student of color, but
also addressing teacher
shortage. Read the Seattle Times article written about Washington State’s
new board here
and Education Week article here.
The Washington State Governor’s Office just released a great article today about
this here
as well!
The Paraeducator Board will make policy recommendations for
a career ladder for streamlined professional advancement of paraeducators, and
will have the authority to set employment requirements and standards, policies
for paraeducator certificates, and approve and develop specified courses.
The first Paraeducator Board meeting will be this Wednesday
and Thursday, September 20th and 21st – visit this page
to see the agenda and access the meeting via webinar. The Paraeducator Board
will also have its own newsletter – sign up here.
BILINGUAL TEACHER PATHWAYS IN WA STATE
Students of color make up nearly 50% of our state’s students,
and the number of English Language Learner (ELL) students is also growing. It
is projected that by 2025, 25% of students will be ELLs. As Dual Language Programs continue to grow in
Washington State to serve ELLs, it’s crucial we are also growing bilingual
teachers and responding to workforce demands.
- One example of
efforts underway is highlighted in this Slate
article, a bilingual
educator “Grow Your Own” program between Highline Public Schools and Western
Washington University that focuses of bilingual paraeducators - one of the
awardees of PESB’s Alternative Route Block Grants.
- This conversation
is also ongoing nationally - New America, a national think tank has published a report that highlights opportunities to
grow a multilingual teacher workforce. PESB will be represented with partners
at New America’s Dual Language Work Group to speak about the program in
Washington D.C. this week.
- This year’s passage of
HB 1445 expands Dual
Language schools and bilingual high school teacher pathways (more on that
below!). To celebrate, OneAmerica launched their Speak Your
Language Campaign, a campaign with
toolkits and resources on advancing bilingualism in teaching.
PESB GRANTS
Alternative Routes Block Grant: As a reminder the deadline for the Alternative Route Block Grant is Oct. 9th.
New Grant - Pilot to Policy, Advancing Systemic Equity: In mid-October, the PESB will release an RFP for a two-year grant for educator preparation programs focused on advancing racial equity – specifically recruiting and retaining diverse teachers, and ensuring educators are prepared with culturally responsive instruction. Learnings from the grant will inform broader PESB policy around equity practices in the field. Contact Chelsea.Whealdon@k12.wa.us to learn more.
The Pipeline for Paraeducators Conditional Scholarship is returning! The new application will launch September 26th and the first closing review date will be October 31st. This conditional loan scholarship provides up to $4,000 for current paraeducators without a college degree, and with at least three years experience, to pursue their Associate of Arts degree at a Washington community or technical college. Candidates will be eligible to pursue their teaching certificate through an Alternative Route 1 program. In order to avoid repayment, candidates must become fully certified and complete a two year teaching obligation. Check the Educator Pathways website next week for more information!
The RWT - Bilingual Teachers Initiative to launch soon! This program will build upon the Recruiting Washington Teachers (RWT) pilot program, supporting high school bilingual students to advance towards becoming teachers in our state. Grants will be available for approximately four districts or a district partnership, with the requirement that there be at least one pilot site on either side of the Cascades. Pilot projects will have the remainder of the 2017-2018 school year as a planning period and will launch in 2018-2019. More information will be released on October 3rd.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Road
Map GYO Educator Regional Gathering: October 23
We
are excited about the upcoming Monday, October 23, Road Map GYO Educator
Regional Gathering. Regional Gatherings bring many stakeholders together
who are interested in the efforts to “Grow Your Own” Educators. Please join us
as we come together to discuss what has happened since we last gathered a year
ago, create new partnerships, celebrate the efforts, and talk about next steps.
Register
Eventbrite
:Monday, October 23, 2:00-4:00pm, Highline College, Mt.
Constance/Olympus|2400 S 240th St, Des Moines,WA 98198
If you have any questions, please contact Victoria.Moreland@k12.wa.us
GET INVOLVED!
Upcoming Work Groups: We have a few work groups launching this fall to dive deep into particular issues – the Testing Barriers Work Group and the CTE B&I Policy Exploration Work Group in partnership with OSPI. If you’d like to be a part of either work group please contact pathways@k12.wa.us
Check us out on Twitter! We are constantly posting on state and national happenings related to our work. Follow us @DiverseWaTeach
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