New Initiative Focuses on Bringing ACPS Students Back as Teachers
Nikki Harris and Rachel Wilson
At the Class of 2019’s graduation last year, Superintendent Dr. Gregory Hutchings announced a new initiative–the Coming Home Campaign. This initiative encourages T.C. graduates to study education in college by guaranteeing them a job teaching in Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) should they “come home.” To be eligible, graduates must achieve a 3.0 GPA and obtain their Virginia Teaching Licensure.
The campaign is designed to combat teacher shortage, a problem across several districts in Virginia. Hutchings said that the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) ordered districts to develop a “grow your own” plan that expands its staff by bringing students into the education profession from college.
Hutchings adopted the Coming Home Campaign from similar initiatives that exist in Fairfax and other school districts around Virginia.
Fairfax City Public Schools (FCPS)launched the Grow Your Own (GYO) Program, “a concept put in place to help combat the decline of an available teacher workforce,” according to the FCPS website.
According to Hutchings, the lack of students not studying education in college has contributed to a teacher shortage.
“We are trying to partner with colleges, such as William and Mary and the University of Virginia, to keep in touch with students and know what [our] students are majoring in,” said Hutchings.
ACPS plans to keep in touch with T.C. graduates in college by encouraging them to substitute teach when they are home for winter break or find an opportunity to take part in ACPS summer programs.
ACPS hires 220 teachers a year, and will not reject any T.C. graduates who meet the state requirements, regardless of whether they come back “five years or 30 years into the future,” Hutchings said. However, the campaign’s aim is to bring students back four or five years out of college, after they have received their Master’s or Bachelor’s degree.
Part of Hutchings’s objective is to recruit more Hispanic teachers, “because the Hispanic population is our highest population in the city of Alexandria,” he said. He is also looking to increase the number of male elementary school teachers and female STEM teachers.
“The campaign began to emerge when a Human Resources (HR) audit […] found that there was a lack of diversity in ACPS faculty. The campaign is currently focused on recruiting a diverse group of students [to become teachers],” said Hutchings.
“I went off to school and got my degree, and I felt, at some point in my career, that I wanted to go back home to educate the students who are in situations I was in growing up, so we are trying to do the same thing for our kids,” said Hutchings, who is a T.C. alum, “A benefit of having alumni teach here is that they understand the culture and experience of T.C.”
The same HR audit that found a lack of diversity in T.C. teachers also found that ACPS “has a teacher retention challenge — a challenge occurring all across the country,” said School Board Member Heather Thornton. “In an effort to increase and sustain our teacher candidate pool, this initiative will allow ACPS to establish a pathway for the city of Alexandria’s students to come back and teach our next generation of leaders.”
The GYO Program is also linked to the VDOE Teachers For Tomorrow (T4T) Program. Virginia T4T is a Dual Enrollment program that offers college credit through Northern Virginia Community College. It currently has 15 students enrolled, with all but two wanting to go into the classroom.
VA T4T gives high school students that want to go into education or any child-care related field a head start. Students in this program graduate high school with a better understanding of effective teaching methods and are able to learn the specifics that the state of Virginia requires to be an educator.
The first semester of VA T4T at T.C. is lecture-based and focuses on the qualifications it takes to become an ACPS teacher. The second semester is an off-site program that has been based at Patrick Henry K-8 School the past three years. Students are assigned a cooperative teacher to assist, and make lesson plans, read to students, lead activities, and monitor encores, such as physical education (P.E.) and music.
VA T4T and Career and Technical Education (CTE) Teacher Kim Wilson has been involved in inspiring new teachers for many years. “I think it was awesome when the superintendent recognized the talents analyzed in his school district, and that he has the faith to know the alumni will want to come back with a purpose and have a foundation where they know they can move from point A to B. It is awesome that he recognizes that these students have a foreway future.”
“VA T4T is [also] a gate for students who may also want to be social workers or psychologists,” Wilson said, “Not everybody wants to work in the classroom but they want to work with children.”
“Basically, [With VA T4T], your student teaching that is required to be an educator is done in high school,” said Wilson.
The VA T4T program and Hutchings’s campaign work cohesively. VA T4T’s focus is to encourage students to major in education and go into teaching, while the Coming Home Campaign’s focus is to bring teachers back to ACPS.
Spanish teacher and T.C. alum Leslie Auceda said, “Seeing teachers I had in high school and knowing they are my colleagues–it is great to have that connection. And seeing kids who I knew when I was a student and being able to see them grow up into high school students is cool. I love the familiarity of it.”
English teacher and T.C. alum Erin Fitch said, “No matter how T.C. changes, there is a familiarity for alumni in the curiosity and excitement in teaching.”
School Board Member Meagan Alderton said that the School Board was briefed on the plan at a meeting before Dr. Hutchings’ announcement. “I believe in our Titans, and would expect that anyone who returned to Alexandria, via this initiative, will be a top quality candidate,” said Alderton.
