Teacher Education Collaboration Aims to Reduce Workforce Shortage

Bowie State & Howard County Public Schools to Train Culturally Responsive Educators

MEDIA CONTACT: Damita Chambers, dchambers@bowiestate.edu, 301-832-2628 mobile

(BOWIE, Md.) – To boost the pipeline of qualified teachers in response to historic shortages, Bowie State University and Howard County Public Schools are providing instructional staff with an alternative pathway to become certified educators, adept at working with diverse students and families.

The initiative, called Paraeducators Pathways to Culturally Responsive Teaching, will provide 32 Howard County Public Schools teacher’s assistants with full-ride scholarships to complete a bachelor’s degree in education at Bowie State University. The paraeducators will also receive specialized professional training, developed and taught by BSU faculty and Howard County teachers, to learn how to effectively engage with diverse populations to maximize students’ potential. Funded by a three-year, $750,000 from the Maryland State Department of Education’s Teacher Collaborative Grant Program, the partnership reflects a commitment by Bowie State’s College of Education to work with local school districts to help meet their teacher workforce needs.

“A program like this is one that can be replicated in other school districts. Paraeducators are a population of instructional support staff that schools in Maryland and throughout the nation can use to fill some of the shortage areas in their teaching workforce,” said Dr. Julius Davis, a BSU associate professor and lead faculty member on this project. “Most of the time, the paraeducators are some of the most diverse instructional staff in schools. They generally come from the community, so they have an insider perspective of the culture from which most of the students are coming.”

Dr. Davis is working with a team of BSU faculty from the Department of Teaching, Learning and Professional Development, including the department chairperson, Dr. Lynne Long, Dr. Akeda Pearson and Dr. Jacquelyn Sweeney. Dr. Darla Scott from the Department of Counseling will serve as the project's evaluator.

The paraeducators, who have a two-year associate’s degree or two years of college coursework, will complete about 60 credits toward a bachelor’s degree focused on elementary education or secondary mathematics education, a high-demand specialty. Those credits, along with the professional training in cultural responsiveness, will prepare graduates to meet the requirements to become certified teachers. A primary goal is to fill teacher shortages within Howard County Public Schools, which is experiencing teacher shortages, according to the 2016-18 Maryland Teacher Staffing Report. The school district also ranks #4 among Maryland’s most diverse school districts, according to niche.com, a popular website for school reviews.

“It’s an extension of the work we’ve already been doing in terms of trying to produce culturally responsive educators,” said Dr. Davis. “We have implemented several culturally responsive training programs through the College of Education, and we’re building on that work within this new partnership. We have a great body of faculty members at Bowie State who have expertise in this area, whose research is in this area. We are really committed to this work.”

Every year, Bowie State already places hundreds of student teachers and recent graduates in classrooms throughout Maryland through close partnerships with local school districts. This partnership expands the relationship with Howard County Public Schools by enabling educators from BSU and the school district to collaborate in recruiting and training new certified teachers from the school district’s pool of paraeducators.

“Many of our students who come to Bowie State from various school districts in the state go back to their communities to teach. That’s what we’re hoping to produce with our work with school districts. ‘You bring your students to us. We’ll prepare them and then deliver them back to you, ready to teach your students.’”

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About Bowie State University
Bowie State University (BSU) is an important higher education access portal for qualified persons from diverse academic and socioeconomic backgrounds, seeking a high-quality and affordable public comprehensive university. The university places special emphasis on the science, technology, cybersecurity, teacher education, business, and nursing disciplines within the context of a liberal arts education. For more information about BSU, visit bowiestate.edu.