{"id":569225,"date":"2021-03-09T15:31:53","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T20:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/?post_type=article&p=569225"},"modified":"2021-03-09T15:34:06","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T20:34:06","slug":"colorado-district-uses-high-school-apprentices-to-grow-its-own-more-diverse-teacher-workforce","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/article\/colorado-district-uses-high-school-apprentices-to-grow-its-own-more-diverse-teacher-workforce\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado District Uses High School Apprentices to Grow Its Own More Diverse Teacher Workforce"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>halia Jones had always liked the idea of becoming an educator. But she wanted to make sure it would be the right fit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI needed reassurance to know that I was going to be a good teacher, like [that] this was my calling, before I’m going to school paying for it and then it\u2019s the wrong thing,\u201d said Jones, who is a high school senior in Denver, Colorado.<\/p>\n

Fortuitously, during her junior year, in the middle of a computer science class that she had begun to tire of, a representative from her Cherry Creek school district came to introduce an opportunity: students could join an all-new \u201cfuture educator\u201d program to shadow local primary school teachers and work with younger kids as paraprofessionals \u2014 all while earning an income.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like it was kind of meant to be when they came into that classroom,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThey were like, \u2018Does anybody want to be a teacher?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones raised her hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m so glad that I made that decision,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause it led me here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, five days a week for about three hours each day, Jones works with elementary students at Cherry Creek Elevation, the district\u2019s online school option for students whose families opted out of in-person learning this year. She shadows a veteran fourth-grade teacher, holds \u201creading group\u201d sessions for students who need extra help and even runs her own class two days a week. In the process, she has racked up college credits and earned admission into several in-state colleges and universities to continue her training as a teacher.<\/p>\n

Jones is one of 26 high school juniors and seniors who participate in Cherry Creek\u2019s future educator pathway. The program, now in its second year, has two central goals: First, as a part of a broader push to provide apprenticeship options to students in the district, it\u2019s a way to give youth like Jones real-world work experience while still in high school.<\/p>\n

But the program also seeks to address a problem pervasive in the 55,000-student district, and common in school systems across America: teacher forces that don\u2019t reflect student bodies. While approximately half of students in the southeast Denver district are kids of color, 85 percent of teachers are white, slightly above the 79 percent share of educators nationally.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Superintendent Scott Siegfried (Cherry Creek Schools)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe need to increase our teachers of color in the Cherry Creek school district,\u201d Superintendent Scott Siegfried told The 74. \u201cWe know that’s good for all kids to have a diverse workforce in front of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

When jobs would open in the district, most applicants would be white, Siegfried said. Cherry Creek was having trouble finding educators of color.<\/p>\n

So the district tried a novel solution: recruiting and training its own students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really focused on, \u2018How can we get a better representation \u2014 racial representation \u2014 of educators inside of Cherry Creek schools?\u2019 Well, it’s to grow the ones that are here inside already,\u201d said Assistant Superintendent Sarah Grobbel.<\/p>\n

In its first two years of operation, 42 percent of youth apprentices working in the future educator program have been Black, Asian, Indigenous or Hispanic \u2014 still a notch below the proportion in the district\u2019s full student body, but well above the 14 percent of Cherry Creek\u2019s full-time work force who are employees of color.<\/p>\n

As districts across the country grapple with how to effectively diversify their teacher forces<\/a>, the Cherry Creek program appears promising and comes at a serendipitous time. Right now, Congress is considering the National Apprenticeship Act of 2021<\/a>, an update to a 1937 bill passed on the heels of another economic crisis. This spring, federal lawmakers will debate strengthening career training opportunities as the pandemic continues to destabilize the postsecondary and employment plans of many young people.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Cherry Creek apprentices in the Future Educator program participate in a literacy training. (Mike Wadleigh)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018A part of me wasn\u2019t being represented\u2019<\/h3>\n

As a student, Jones is all too familiar with the problem of learning from homogenous, all-white teachers. Before moving to Denver as a high school junior, she grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, where, as she put it, \u201cAll of my teachers, for the most part, were old white guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her history classes especially would tell distorted narratives, said Jones, celebrating Thomas Jefferson and visiting his plantations, for example, without critiquing him for owning or having sex with slaves, notably Sally Hemings<\/a>, who bore six of Jefferson\u2019s children. During conversations on slavery or civil rights, she would sometimes disengage as a coping mechanism.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don’t want to say certain things to certain people,\u201d said Jones, who is Black. \u201cI felt like a part of me wasn’t being represented.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now Jones plans to become a history teacher herself to set the record straight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want people to understand the truth of American history,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n