Colorado is launching a teacher apprenticeship program in race to solve chronic staff shortages – By Erica Breunlin (Colorado Sun) / May 17, 2024
The program, launching for prospective teachers next year, will be tailored toward individuals who don’t yet have a bachelor’s degree
LONGMONT — They barely ever stop wiggling or giggling, and yet Deejha Blash-Lopez still manages to teach her kindergarten class how to sound out words and syllables — the same skills she learned decades ago in a classroom just down the hallway.
Blash-Lopez, a teacher at Mountain View Elementary School in Longmont, has come full circle at her school, despite being only about a year into her career. She now teaches in the same room where she attended fifth grade and still learns from her second grade teacher, Mrs. Horowitz, who continues to sub at the elementary school and was the first person to nudge her toward teaching.
“It feels right,” Blash-Lopez said. “It just feels like everything fell together, and it’s where I’m meant to be. It’s a surreal experience to be working with people that helped drive me to find this passion and were hoping to inspire others to become educators as well. I just hope that I can inspire other students like the educators that inspired me.”
The 22-year-old teacher is among a growing number of Colorado educators who have made their way into the classroom through apprenticeships, which have a deep history in other fields but are newer to teaching.
CONTINUE > https://coloradosun.com/2024/05/17/colorado-teacher-shortages-apprenticeship-programs/
