As we continue the conversation with Kim Eckert, Craft Education's head of Instructional Innovation and Apprenticeship Design and former Louisiana Teacher of the Year in this second half of our two-part series, we learn about how to start small while aiming for larger scale implementation. By gathering all the constituents a program will need, such as higher education faculty, district leadership, as well as legislative and funding personnel, building a sustainable teacher apprenticeship program becomes a realistic possibility.

Ms. Eckert can be reached at kim.eckert@crafteducation.com

In this first half of our two-part series with Craft Education's  head of Instructional Innovation and Apprenticeship Design, Kim Eckert, we learn why teacher apprenticeships are vitally important to the future of teacher education. As part of that importance, we also hear how community colleges are ideally positioned to lead this work that endeavors to break down the financial barriers that traditional student teaching often brings to teacher candidates who may already have families. Additionally, teacher apprenticeships keep paraprofessionals who are already community members within the schools and communities they already serve.

In this episode we here from Dr. Kevin Spooner, Associate Dean of Education at Warner Pacific University, Tanya Mead, Chair of the Education Department at Portland Community College, Uma Joshi-Garcia from the Multnomah Service District Grow Your Own Program, and Andreina Velasco a Grow Your Own Pathway Navigator from the David Douglas School District. Listen as this collaborative team discusses the value of Grow Your Own programs for teacher candidates and how the college and university work to ensure teacher candidates can be successful. They discuss how being navigators is so much more than simply mentoring students on financial, admissions, and course decisions, but also incorporates seeing to their emotional well-being so that the teacher candidates can feel safe and confident. In particular, they highlight that the retention rate in GYO programs is between 85-90%.

In addition to being able to positively affect the diversity of the teaching profession, they are advocating for diversifying the teacher preparation workforce by incorporating more teachers of color, more teachers who've recently been in the classroom, and more teachers who've gone through alternative or non-traditional teacher preparation programs.