Port Chester Schools plants the seeds to grow the next generation of teachers
December 19, 2024 at 2:27 a.m.
Often, young aspiring educators don’t get in front of a classroom for firsthand experience in their chosen field until they’ve reached the student teaching segment of their training.
And that’s typically at the end of their bachelor’s program.
“Imagine if this wasn’t for you, that could be a really tough moment,” said Port Chester Schools Director of English Language Learner and Bilingual Studies Valerie Lakestream. “When it is for you, it’s so affirming and wonderful, but it’s great to be able to get that experience and have those moments early on, before you even enter a program. It’s fantastic that we’re able to give those opportunities to our students now.”
The reasons Port Chester Schools this year incorporated a Grow Your Own program into its offerings are multifaceted. Giving students guidance as they consider their professional lives beyond high school represents one element, but the initiative also aims to address a national issue that has trickled down locally just as it has anywhere else: the teacher shortage.
Is there a better place to foster a professional interest and passion in K-12 education than the district students blossomed in?
The Grow Your Own initiative is an umbrella phrase that speaks to a statewide mission to systematically sustain and bolster “a community-driven teacher pipeline.” The State Education Department describes the programs it encompasses as tools to provide early exposure to the field of education—a way for high schoolers to dip their toes into the water.
“It’s something we’re really excited about. District wide, it’s definitely a point of pride,” Lakestream said. “While it’s been talked about in the area, we’re one of the few schools to actually have a program. So, it’s nice to be cutting edge.”
“We’ve had so many hands involved; it’s been a district-wide lift,” she continued, because the purpose of the program is to be sustaining and will take several years to evolve.
The district aims to promote student interest in education by offering teaching courses, with the hope to draw graduates home years later when they become certified educators. “That way, we can attract candidates here who are really a part of our mission and vision,” she said. “Who better to have than our own students who know and love Port Chester, who become educators and then come back to give back to the community?”
This year, Port Chester High School introduced two new courses. Juniors have been able to take an Ed Prep class, while seniors could enroll in a dual-enrollment TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) Methodology class that upon completion qualifies them for college credits through SUNY New Paltz.
There are around 14 students involved in the inaugural year of the Grow Your Own roll out, but High School Principal Luke Sotherden expects to see the program grow.
“Before we leaped into it, we surveyed our kids, because we don’t want to offer a course and then no one takes it. But actually, a lot more kids expressed interest than ended up in it,” he said. “If you’re in the IB program, for example, it might have ended up conflicting with courses you need. And we had to publish it last year after the scheduling process had already begun. We expect to have more kids flow into it based on the survey results we’ve been conducting.”
The Ed Prep course serves as an introduction to education. Students learn about the history and sociology of the field, court cases that have impacted it, different roles in education and teaching philosophies, Sotherden said.
The seniors TESOL Methodology course is all about the practice—teaching students how to be an educator in the topic.
“This is a class New York State will soon be requiring for all teachers. If they end up pursuing a teaching degree, they’ll be able to check this off that list and not have to take it in college,” Lakestream explained. “That’s why we went this route. But it’s also, TESOL strategies are excellent for teaching diverse learners, which might be a student with special needs or a student with different learning styles. Even if you don’t end up working with English Language Learners, you can use these strategies, they’re quite useful.”
The dual enrollment partnership with SUNY New Paltz provides the high school with a syllabus and the Ed Prep gives a general background, but there’s flexibility in the program’s entirety for the district to design an experience that caters to student choice.
In January, students in the Grow Your Own program will start internships at Park Avenue Elementary School, just across the street from the high school, that will put them in front of a classroom to teach lessons. And Sotherden stressed that partnering with the neighboring building is just the start—they plan to expand their horizons and get students practiced across the district because “we all agree it’s important to give kids experience at all levels,” he said.
“There’s a variety of potential educators in the program. Some of them want to be school psychologists, some want to be counselors, some want to teach at a high school level and some at the elementary school level,” Sotherden said. “So, we have to think about all those roles and make those experiences for them.”
The high schoolers will also be invited to an educators’ conference in New Paltz later this school year, which, Lakestream said, isn’t an opportunity many teachers have until after they’ve started their careers.
Students must pay the university $100 for three credits toward their bachelor’s degree—a severely discounted rate—to graduate high school with the college course on their transcript. However, Sotherden said the district is not blocking any students from participating in the class if they can’t afford it.
As Grow Your Own initiatives amp up across the state, Lakestream said they anticipate funding opportunities to help students earn credits will become available. Educational networks and associations in New York are already talking about offering grants and scholarships.
“Our teachers union actually already won a grant for this program as well that we can utilize for things like taking the trip to SUNY New Paltz,” she said. The monies, which were bestowed by the New York State United Teachers, suggest organizations are interested in investing in the educator pipeline through these initiatives, the administrators agreed.
While the Grow Your Own program has launched at the high school this year, it’s just the first step of development. An entire structure must be built so ideally, as pupils move on from Port Chester and continue to get certified in education, they’ll be drawn back to their hometown.
To stay in touch with them post-graduation, the district will be tapping their relatively new Human Resources Department to devise strategies. Lakestream said they also hope to continue supporting students on their academic journey toward accreditation—potentially inviting them back for summer school opportunities, student teaching, or even clerical work they can pursue while taking their higher education courses.
Because the school district has so many students proficient in both Spanish and English, who often come from immigrant families, Sotherden said it makes sense to sow the seeds the way they’re attempting to do. At least for years to come, there will be a continued need for compassionate, bilingual educators, and that’s exactly what you see in a homegrown teacher.
Comments:
You must login to comment.