PHOENIX — A program meant to help recruit and retain teachers is in its second year and a group of other leaders from across the country came to see how Arizona’s program is working.
In just one year, Alyscia Etsitty has grown as a person and as an educator.
“I’ve learned that there’s more than one way to teach that standard and how to unfold a curriculum other than just textbook-based,” she told ABC15.
Etsitty was part of the first group of 21 to join the Arizona Teacher Residency program just last year. The program is modeled after medical residencies, allowing those coming into the profession to get a better understanding of the industry they’re going into.
In a resident’s first year in the teacher program, they shadow a teacher for the entire school year and then eventually take over that teacher’s classroom toward the end of the first year. In the second year of the residency program, teachers will then get their own classroom and become official teachers with participating school districts.
Etsitty is teaching at Clarendon Elementary, where she also did her residency last year.
“I love it. Totally different,” she said of the difference in last year’s work. “A good feeling of ownership in my own classroom.”
The resident students are also going through the master’s program at Northern Arizona University while in the residency. The program also provides housing and childcare stipends, hoping to reduce any barriers and support teachers while they’re training.
“We’re just really wanting to support our residents financially because obviously, they’re not going to make it back as a teacher of record if they go into debt right now. It’s hard to come back from that,” said Victoria Theisen-Homer, the director of the Arizona Teacher Residency.
On Tuesday, 32 people from other teacher residency programs from across the country came to Arizona to take a closer look at how the program is run here.
Karen Wright, the director of residencies and clinical experience at Marian University in Indianapolis, Indiana, said their program has been going for four years now. Coming to Arizona and already seeing the program for a few hours, she noticed how streamlined the communication and onboarding process is.
“The hope is to kind of take away some ways to improve our program to include and increase the number of teachers we’re putting out in the workforce that are highly trained and highly prepared,” Wright said.
The need for qualified teachers across the country is dire, not just in Arizona. However, Arizona continues to be toward the lower end of the spectrum for teacher pay and per-pupil spending according to many estimates.
“The major point of the teacher’s residency program is to uplift teachers in our state. I think we’ve continued to lower the bar and lower the bar for new teachers because we’re trying to fill holes in a leaky bucket here in Arizona,” Theisen-Homer said. “But the problem with that is we’re not actually fixing the holes by uplifting the profession and providing people more preparation. We’re just putting people in classrooms, and instead, they need to be prepared.”
The program has mentors who will continue to help teachers like Etsitty for the next few years as they finish out the program, hoping to provide support to keep new teachers in the industry and in the classroom for the students.
“I feel more like I’m part of a team. It’s set in stone that I’m part of the Clarendon family,” Etsitty said of being an official teacher with the district. “It’s a very, very awesome feeling just knowing that I belong, and it’s my calling.”
The Arizona Teacher Residency program will continue and is looking to add more resident teachers in the next few years. This year, it expanded to more school districts. Originally, it started out at Roosevelt, Osborn, and Tempe elementary school districts and then expanded to Cartwright Elementary and Scottsdale Unified school districts.
The program was funded by ESSER dollars that were allocated during the pandemic. Those funds are set to end next fall. However, Thiesen-Homer said they are looking for more funding sources by fundraising, help from foundation grants, and dollars from school districts and NAU.