TEXARKANA, Texas — Local educators gathered at Texas A&M University-Texarkana on Thursday to brainstorm and discuss ideas for addressing the teacher shortage plaguing many regional schools.
A planning grant given to TAMU-T’s education department funded the meeting. It was meant to create a new road to teaching through further instruction for those already involved in the field.
“We have a very diverse group for our grant planning group,” said Kelly Cordray, assistant professor for education. “Our goal was to create a new teacher pathway for those who are serving as paraprofessionals and permanent substitutes to get them back into classrooms as quickly as possible without sacrificing the quality.”
According to Cordray, the grant planning committee includes teachers from various areas: special education, instructional technology, and bilingual and English as a second language instructors.
“We totally believe in day one ready teachers,” Cordray said. “We know that we’re providing the coursework, the practicum that they’ll be ready on that first day. But we just need a quicker pathway.”
Cordray said the group has developed a road for paraprofessionals and substitutes, as well as for those who have recently graduated high school. The program addresses classroom management, diversity, equity, inclusion, knowledge, professionalism and the legal knowledge necessary for being a teacher.
The workshop was led by Toney Favors, TAMU-T’s assistant vice president of admissions and recruiting.
Favors started with an activity involving sticky notes on their tables. The attendees were to use the green notes to explain something that has gone well and the orange notes for explaining something that was challenging.
Participants appeared to ponder and slowly began to attach their thoughts to large pieces of butcher paper on their way to a lunch line.
The poster featuring a medley of green showed notes such as “more normal start,” “positive attitudes,” and “coachable educators.”
The orange version showed reasons why the participants were gathering: “teacher pool is still limited,” “enrollment has decreased,” and “decreased respect for education and educators.”
The meeting was the first step in coordinating the plan, which will be submitted to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board on Oct. 30.