SCOE and partners launch "Be a Teacher" intern program to address teacher shortage

01/15/2016 -

An effort by SCOE and its partners to establish a school of education to address the teacher shortage reached a new milestone this month with the rollout of a "Be a Teacher" intern program.

The North Coast School of Education, when it is fully implemented, will be a sort of one-stop-shop for people wishing to become educators. The first program to be rolled out, the "Be a Teacher" Intern program, debuted in January 2016, in partnership with the Tulare County Office of Education, with a cohort of 35 Special Education teacher candidates. Special Education departments across the state are seeing an acute need for new teachers. The cohort of 35 teachers should be ready to enter the classroom as paid teacher interns by the fall.

Meanwhile, the North Coast School of Education has been highlighted in this article in the Press Democrat as well as articles in publications for educators, such as Ed Week and The Cabinet Report.

"Our program is for the re-entry person, primarily, someone who when the economic crisis hit, they had their BA but couldn’t find a job,” County Superintendent of Schools Steve Herrington told Press Democrat Reporter Jeremy Hay. "They went and tried something else. Now they want to be a teacher.” Read about it here.