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SHEPHERDSTOWN — Six highschool college students from Jefferson County Colleges are getting a head begin on their dream of changing into academics, due to a pilot program referred to as Develop Your Personal Pathway to Educating by the West Virginia Division of Schooling.
The six are taking dual-enrollment lessons at Shepherd College, together with some schooling programs, for which they earn each highschool and school credit.
The Develop Your Personal Pathway to Educating program pairs higher-education establishments with county faculty programs to assist highschool college students who’re inquisitive about pursuing schooling careers doubtlessly graduate a from school in three years. The Develop Your Personal Pathway program’s aim is to handle the state’s important instructor scarcity.
“It was the primary fields we had instructor shortages in had been math and science, however now, we now have all of them fields,” mentioned Dr. Dori Hargrove, director, Shepherd Faculty of Schooling. “We want individuals who have a ardour for educating and who need to give again to the group.”
Like most faculty programs throughout the state, Jefferson County struggles to search out certified academics to fill its lecture rooms.
“At present, Jefferson County is experiencing a scarcity of licensed academics,” mentioned Samantha Viands, Jefferson County Colleges certification and recruitment coordinator. “We’ve an extra of 75 positions at present stuffed by everlasting substitutes.”
Viands is happy that Jefferson County is one in every of 29 counties in West Virginia collaborating in this system.
“Two of our greatest recruitment instruments are our group and our location,” Viands mentioned. “The Develop Your Personal program builds up this by rising academics from our group.”
Beneath this system, college students of their junior or senior 12 months of highschool can start taking Superior Placement and/or dual-enrollment programs that may meet the necessities for a level in educating. This system requires college students to take a minimal of 24 credit. Twelve of these credit are core curriculum lessons, and 12 are foundational schooling programs.
“If a pupil begins of their junior 12 months, by the point they graduate highschool, they might have at the very least 20 credit. Some would have as much as 30 credit and be capable of enroll as a sophomore at a college,” Hargrove mentioned. “Candidates obtain steady teaching and mentoring. Analysis suggests it’s that teaching and mentoring that’s important to retaining the candidates even after they graduate.”
As well as, the Develop Your Personal program covers the price of tuition for the required schooling lessons and the price of the Praxis check, which college students are required to go for instructor certification. It additionally offers college students classroom expertise earlier than graduating from highschool, and as soon as they’re seniors in school, they’re eligible to be paid throughout their pupil educating expertise.
“It’s a terrific program,” mentioned Barbara Kandalis, Shepherd’s coordinator for twin enrollment. “West Virginia positively wants extra academics, and it encourages them to remain inside the state.”
Kandalis mentioned the Develop Your Personal program offers college students the chance to find out in the event that they need to pursue a profession in schooling earlier than enrolling in school.
“Taking a few schooling programs and getting your ft moist can open your eyes as to whether you actually need to be a instructor,” Kandalis mentioned. “The twin-enrollment program could be very conducive to doing that it doesn’t matter what profession a pupil is inquisitive about.”
— Info supplied by Shepherd College
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