Racine School District, UW-Parkside Partner To Address Special Education Teacher Shortage

The University of Wisconsin-Parkside and the Racine Unified School District are partnering up to address a special education teacher shortage in the district. They’re launching a two-year teacher residency program that will serve as a pipeline to meet the district’s needs.

Starting this fall, the first class of 20 teachers will teach Mondays through Thursdays in the same classroom each day.

On Fridays, teachers in the program will return to the university to resume their regular coursework while a substitute teacher takes over their classroom.

Participants will be paid a teacher’s salary and receive a 50 percent tuition remission. They will also receive financial help to cover one-time test fees for licensure.

Julie Landry is chief human resource officer of the district and came up with the idea. She said the program removes the barriers of time and money.

“Especially (for) those that are career changers or those who have families and other obligations that they just can’t commit to a traditional program while trying to work and earn a living to take care of their families,” Landry said.

Landry said often times teachers will go through certification programs and fail to pass the required state tests.

She said the partnership aims to address the difficulty of program curriculum and testing by building test preparation into their school work.

The program will also offer mentors as a means of support that will help participants even after they get their teacher’s license.

RUSD is one of nine school districts identified by the state Department of Public Instruction shown to have the largest gaps in teacher experience and preparation, said Dana Ryan, director of advanced professional development at UW-Parkside’s Institute of Professional Educator Development.

She said the program’s structure aims to address that problem by assigning teachers to classrooms from the start of their education.

Ryan said the program is also trying to recruit underrepresented populations and people working under emergency teacher licenses.

“We’re trying to really diversify the workforce in RUSD and give people who might not have considered teaching as a permanent profession a chance to really shine in the classroom,” she said.

In exchange, participants must stay and work in the district for a total of five years.

After two information sessions in July, administrators say they hope to have narrowed their applicant pool to the final 20 by the first week of August.

The pilot program is expected to cost $200,000 with roughly 98 percent of the costs being covered by the district.

“When you think of the attrition rate and the turnover that we have, $200,000 is really inexpensive when you think about costs that we incur of having a vacant, a classroom without a teacher,” Landry said.