Leah Silverstone doesn’t hold back when talking to her high-energy protege, Arvada West senior Amanda Erholm, about the rigors and pitfalls of teaching.
“I am honest as I can be about teaching,” said Silverstone, who is starting her ninth year in the classroom, seven of those at Fremont Elementary School in Jefferson County. “I feel I have to be. It’s tough some days and there is so much burnout in teaching. I try to give her the big picture, which is a lot of good and sometimes some bad.”
Silverstone’s tough love is not deterring Erholm, at least not yet. “I like working with kids and working with Leah,” a smiling Erholm said. “I have just always wanted to work with kids, and be a teacher.”
Colorado hopes Erholm follows through with her intent to get a teaching degree as the state struggles with a massive shortage of qualified teachers. As many as 3,000 teaching slots are open in the state’s classrooms, with rural schools suffering the most.
Erholm is part of Colorado’s Teacher Cadet program, which pairs high school juniors and seniors with veteran teachers to get them prepared for a career in the classroom. Erholm also is likely to take advantage of a new University of Colorado Boulder initiative that guarantees admission to qualified high schoolers interested in becoming teachers.
CU’s move is part of an overall effort by lawmakers and universities in Colorado to stem the tide of young teachers streaming away from the classroom, mostly because of low salaries and inexperience working with classrooms of 30 young, squirming kids.
“We wanted to get creative in solving this problem, and CU’s proposal is one more tool we can use,” said Michelle Dennis, director of the Teacher Cadet program.
Teacher salaries are especially low in Colorado’s small districts, where 95 percent of teacher pay is below the cost of living. School officials blame state budget limitations — implemented after the 2008 recession — for keeping financially strapped districts from hiring enough qualified teachers and support personnel. Younger teachers are also leaving after only a few years to pursue more lucrative fields.
“For the past 10 years, Colorado school districts have been and continue to be impacted by these… factors,” said Tracie Rainey, executive director of the School Finance Project. “The impact to districts and classrooms is ongoing.”
Rainey, in a survey she conducted this year of Colorado school districts, found gaping holes in academic programs and services. Math, science, English language learning and special education classes are often left without a full-time teacher for months and sometimes years in smaller school districts. Other staff positions are hurting as well.
One rural district in north central Colorado is short 14 teachers, and another has not been able to find a full-time bus mechanic. Other districts cannot find audiologists, occupational therapists and speech therapists, forcing administrators to contract out for those services. That is costly on district budgets, which hover around $1 million in some rural areas, according to the survey.
Another district in northeast Colorado is forced to use substitute teachers who only have high school degrees, the survey found.
The teacher shortage problem prompted several proposals in the 2018 legislative session that were met with approval from lawmakers. One bill provides a $10,000 fellowship to student teachers in rural communities, and another provides stipends up to $6,000 for educators in rural districts pursing alternative licensure or additional education.
A third allows student teachers to have their own classrooms and earn a salary and tuition reimbursement, with Colorado offsetting some of the cost. Each of these programs would require teachers to stay with the district for a certain amount of time.
To get more teachers into the employment pipeline, CU Boulder in October announced it would offer guaranteed admission to its School of Education for the 2018-19 school year for any high school students interested in becoming teachers.
CU’s initiative will lean heavily on two programs that have long produced qualified teacher candidates: Teacher Cadet and Pathways2Teaching, said Kathy Schultz, dean of the School of Education. “Given the strength and caliber of these programs, we are confident students will thrive in our education and leadership programs,” Schultz said.
The Teacher Cadet program started in South Carolina in 1985. It was brought to Colorado in 2001 and refined by Arvada West teacher Christine McConnell. Teacher Cadets, including Erholm, spend part of their school day with veteran teachers and immerse themselves in the workings of a classroom, McConnell said.
They also earn college credits while in the program, which is in more than 20 rural and urban high schools in Colorado with as many as 500 enrolled students, according to CU officials.
Student cadets learn quickly how to work with a classroom full of kids who have different interests and skills, McConnell said.
“It teaches them the leadership skills they will need,” McConnell said, “and the challenges they will face.”
Some are entranced by the work and move onto a college teaching program while others quickly learn teaching is not for them. “I’ve had high schoolers say after one day, ‘Nope, this is not for me,’ ” she said.
Pathways2Teaching, meanwhile, is a nationally recognized initiative founded by CU Denver Professor Margarita Bianco that aims to get more minority students into classrooms to better reflect the diversity of a local student population, Schultz said.
Students of color interested in teaching face a variety of barriers, including poverty, language and being first-generation college students, said Bianco, who is also a Timmerhaus Teaching Ambassador. “Colleges and universities must find ways to be more inclusive if we truly want to address the critical shortage of teachers of color,” Bianco said.
Both CU Denver and Boulder “flag” Pathways2Teaching students’ applications for a more personal interview. “And in those cases where students are so close to meeting admissions criteria, but fall short, we can step in and advocate for and find solutions to support our students,” Bianco said.
In the program’s first eight years, about 800 students in Colorado have been enrolled in Pathway2Teaching, she said, and have been aligned with seven metro-area school districts, she said.
“I am especially proud the number of men of color in our program,” Bianco said. “It’s good for them and it’s good for our schools.”
