Matching a need for teachers with those wanting to teach

Jack Andreasen pointed to cotton batting, soda cans and foil on a counter and told his students he wanted to see thermos prototypes before the end of the period — tested, if possible.

The prototypes needed to be usable, as the finished products would be donated to a local group that provides items to field workers, he reminded them. At the same time, though, he expected some trial and error.

“Chances are the first time you make this Thermos it won’t be the best Thermos you ever made,” Andreasen, a physical science teacher at Robert Olds Junior High School, told the class. “You’ll have to modify something, change something.”

Across the street at Connell Elementary School, Dahir Jigre talked about the types of food dinosaurs ate before breaking his students into groups to work on learning the words pinned to their shirts, which were their “names” for the day.

“Instead of Mr. Jigre, I’m Mr. Away,” Jigre explained, noting the kids will quickly jump on him when he uses a student’s real name instead of their word for the day. “They get very attached to it, it really helps.”

Both classrooms look like any other in the Mid-Columbia. Both men seem like any other young new educators working with students, looking for ways to engage them in learning.

But it’s only through the Teach for America program that Andreasen, Jigre and several other instructors in Mid-Columbia school districts are working in a profession they never planned to pursue.

Teachers trained by Teach for America, a program associated with AmeriCorps, are called corps members. They say that the work has been fulfilling and they’ve enjoyed bonding with students.

But getting through the two-year teaching commitment can be rough at times. Corps members, while passionate about teaching, lack the in-depth training and experience of traditionally educated teachers.

Some teacher union officials oppose their hiring, even as districts rely on corps members to address a teacher shortage.

“It is a stigma that Teach for America will have to overcome,” said Gregg Taylor, superintendent of the North Franklin School District.

‘I had this growing passion’

A handful of corps teachers have worked in the Mid-Columbia for the past three years, with six working in North Franklin schools alone this year. The Grandview, Sunnyside and Kennewick school districts have also worked with Teach for America.

Almost 100 have worked in Washington since the program became established here five years ago. Nationally, they have taught in schools with educational challenges for the past 25 years, said Kathryn Phillips, a Teach for America spokeswoman.

While some applicants have perhaps studied teaching, most have not. Those destined for Washington schools take a six-week teaching course at the University of Washington before heading to their assigned schools with conditional teaching certificates.

They are periodically evaluated and mentored by coaches from the program, such as BreAnna Jones, who observed Andreasen and Jigre in class, left them notes and chatted with them about what appeared to be working with students and what didn’t. School administrators also assess them.

Each corps member must complete additional coursework and earn a teaching degree over the length of their two-year commitment. They also can receive a grant for more than $10,000 upon completion of their contract, an incentive often meant to help pay off student loans.

The organization strives to provide teachers in fields most in demand, such as early education, special education, science, technology, engineering and math, Phillips said. Most importantly, though, they want to ensure all students have access to quality teachers.

“We’re looking for people who can find the potential in all students,” Phillips said.

Those also are the kind of teachers districts are looking for, and it’s become increasingly difficult to find them. School officials sometimes resort to issuing emergency certifications, usually to college students in their final year of student teaching.

Andreasen earned a biology degree from the University of Nebraska. He taught a lab course at his alma mater and worked in a Spanish-speaking adult education program offered through a community center.

“I had this growing passion to communicate science to people any way I could,” he said.

A roommate told Andreasen about Teach for America. The program matched up with his values of promoting science education and providing an opportunity to give back, he said. He’s now in his second year teaching in Connell.

Zack Zappone, a language arts and history teacher at Kennewick’s Park Middle School, grew up in Spokane but attended Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Zappone began volunteering in a school there and decided he wanted to be a teacher. Georgetown didn’t offer a teaching program, though, leading him to apply to Teach for America.

“I would have had to wait a year or two to attend graduate school and I wanted to get in the classroom right away,” he said.

He finished his two-year commitment to the program a year ago and is still teaching at Park.

Personal and political challenges

Corps members in the Mid-Columbia say their work is fulfilling but also challenging.

Andreasen said Connell is much like the small town in Nebraska he grew up in, except the town “grows artichokes instead of corn and soybeans.” His first months in the classroom were difficult.

“I didn’t have a lot of self-confidence as a teacher,” he said. “I wasn’t sure I was making the difference I wanted to make.”

Despite being relatively close to his hometown, Zappone felt isolated in his first year at Park, he said. He was one of the youngest teachers at the school and the only one from Teach for America.

Struggling to teach an unruly class didn’t help.

“There were moments when I asked if I’d even come back next semester,” he said.

Corps members aren’t always welcomed when they arrive on the job. Zappone started three weeks late his first year because the Kennewick Education Association filed a grievance with the district related to his hiring, saying it violated the subcontracting clause of the teacher contract.

“Our concerns stem from the practices of (Teach for America)—we see it as a attempt to privatize public education,” said Teri Staudinger, president of the Kennewick Education Association.

The program puts prospective teachers through only a few weeks of training before placing them in some of the most challenging schools, and also charges districts to place corps members in their schools, she added.

“As educators, we believe the state does a great disservice to our students and our profession when people without the proper training or knowledge are placed in a classroom,” Staudinger said.

The union eventually dropped the grievance out of a reluctance to pursue it through arbitration.

Finding acceptance, filling a need

Neither Zappone nor Andreasen were ever ostracized by other teachers working in their schools, they said.

Zappone is now a member of the teachers union. Other educators were more likely to be curious when they learned he was with Teach for America in his first years in the district, he said.

“I did bring a lot of new ideas in,” he said, noting they didn’t always work out. “But I’d bring something to the table and they’d say ‘wow, we’d never thought of that,’ and jump on it.”

Taylor hasn’t heard of any issues with the Teach for America corps members in Connell schools from administrators or teachers, he said.

There’s no indication that students in Connell classrooms are performing differently, though this is only the second year the program has provided educators for the district, he said.

There is no quota the district has to fulfill with Teach for America, Taylor said, and if interviews with the program’s corps members revealed they weren’t suitable teachers, they wouldn’t have been placed in classrooms.

While more traditionally educated teachers, who still represent the majority working in schools, are highly qualified, the statewide teacher shortage means other options have to be considered, Taylor said.

“It is an alternative education program,” he said. “It’s just another pathway for teachers.”

Classroom a destination or a pit stop?

Longevity is a concern when it comes to Teach for America. Most corps members complete their two-year commitment and many go on to teach for a third year at their assigned schools, Phillips said.

After that they often go on to other careers, though they may be related to education or social work.

Andreasen and Zappone said they aren’t sure what they’re next step is.

Zappone, who is pursuing a master’s degree, is proud of the mock trial club he started at Park Middle School, and he’s also coaching soccer. He thinks he’d like to be a school principal someday.

Andreasen said teaching hasn’t been exactly what he expected and wonders if he needs to move onto something else to fulfill his vision to spread science literacy.

But he has really enjoyed it, he said, largely because of the same students he worked with recently in determining which of their foil and duct-taped creations could keep water hot the longest.

“They’re brilliant. They think of ideas I’d never think of and they ask thoughtful questions,” he said.

This story was originally published November 7, 2015 at 9:44 PM with the headline "Matching a need for teachers with those wanting to teach."