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I am looking forward to reading this as time permits!

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I am looking forward to reading this as time permits!

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Ottley & Ellis "Qualitative Analysis of Black Male Perceptions of Retention Initiatives at a Rural Predominantly White Institution;

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Ottley & Ellis "Qualitative Analysis of Black Male Perceptions of Retention Initiatives at a Rural Predominantly White Institution;

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A New Teacher at 50: Inside the Struggle to Rebuild America's Black Teaching Workforce

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A New Teacher at 50: Inside the Struggle to Rebuild America's Black Teaching Workforce

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A New Teacher at 50_ Inside the Struggl..

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Descending from three generations of ministers and church pastors, Dr. Art McCoy remembers growing up with "a passion for helping people, healing hurt, and transforming minds"-but he was determined to take his passion "beyond the walls of a religious institution." For McCoy, a school building became his church.

At 18, he was the youngest certified teacher in his home state of Missouri, and at 33, he was the youngest ever and first African American superintendent of a local district in St. Louis County. The early years of his career were a crash course in the challenges of school leadership. In addition to learning the ropes of management, he regularly witnessed the toll that adverse childhood experiences took on the minds of his students-and the staff that supported them.

"I've had students who have experienced major trauma," says McCoy, who for the last five years has served as superintendent of the 3,000-student Jennings School District, where 100 percent of students are on free and reduced-price lunch and 98 percent of students are African American. "When I go into a school building and tell the whole student body, 'Raise your hand if you have a loved one in jail,' 80 percent of hands go up. I say, 'Raise your hand if it's your brother, your sister, your mother, your father,' and 70 percent of hands are up."

As he navigated his career as an educator, vice principal, assistant superintendent, and superintendent in eastern Missouri, trauma continued to impact his school community. One year, he attended the funerals of seven students, and in 2014, a former student, Michael Brown, was fatally shot by a Ferguson police officer when he was 18 years old. Students regularly toiled with poverty, racism, and toxic stress-and other circumstances beyond their control.

But McCoy learned that when schools put the right systems in place, their success is "not defined or confined by zip code." In recent years, the district has achieved a 100 percent graduation rate with 100 percent career and college placement for students. McCoy credits this success, in part, to wraparound supports for students-and crucially for the staff-that prioritize their social and emotional wellness and mental health. Since 2016, McCoy has raised approximately $2 million in private funds annually to support numerous health and wellness initiatives within schools.

Edutopia sat down with McCoy to discuss mental health, creating support systems for his staff, and making space for educators to unpack secondary trauma.

EDUTOPIA: Data suggests that one in every three Black children in the United States has been exposed to between two and eight adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Serving a predominantly Black student population, how do you see this data impacting your district?

MCCOY: For generations, there have been several epidemics that have impacted our students. One is the adverse childhood experience of having friends perish all around you. St. Louis City is the murder capital of the United States, and that is a major epidemic that our students have faced for a long time. Our students are familiar with students' deaths and have experienced the deaths of their loved ones.

Secondly, there's a high degree of violence in our silence. A lot of people are struggling silently with mental health issues. We were the first school in St. Louis County and city to come back in person in July of 2020. Ultimately, we believed our children needed someone to turn to and somewhere to go when it was a really difficult time for everyone. If there was one student that needed us, we would be open.

EDUTOPIA: And how does teaching and serving this student population affect your staff?

MCCOY: It takes a committed person to educate in an urban environment-particularly in an environment with nearly 100 percent of any type of population, especially African Americans. We have to educate as if our life, our legacy, and our liberty depend on it, because they actually do. You must be committed to the children. You must do for the child what they need.

The question that a student shared with me was, "Who do I turn to when I can't even turn to the person who gave life to me?" And the answer is the youth should turn to me, to educators; to mandated reporters, to social workers, to first responders, to the adults in their life who are around them, care about them, and love them.

Yet supporting students can literally suck the life out of you, the spirit out of you. And that is my best description of what secondary trauma is. It's the impact of literally giving your fuel to another soul so that they can go on another day and live in a brighter way.

School leaders have to remember staff need to refuel too. You can't lead on empty. You need leaders with a perspective that say to teachers that "it's OK to not be OK." They should be on the lookout for drastic mood swings or outbursts among staff; isolation from peers, meetings, and projects; overly harsh reactions to students or detachment from students entirely; excessive judgment of parents' situations; and burnout in the first few weeks after a break from school as signs staff might have secondary trauma.

EDUTOPIA: How did you come to the decision that it was important to provide staff with mental health services?

MCCOY: After establishing programs for the parents and after establishing clinics for students, it was clear that we had left out the staff. Our corporate partners gave the facilities to our staff to do monthly happy hours with a therapist and to have peace circles off the school campus, so I set up happy hours at local country clubs.

We heard the feedback from our staff, "This was amazing. I needed that. And I need this multiple times during the week." I didn't take that lightly. I didn't laugh. I thought, "Hmmm, multiple times in a week." So that seed was planted.

Seeing the popular demand, it became clear that staff needed more than just one session with somebody that was not their supervisor. We needed to make this an embedded part of the system for our success. After using Alive and Well (a Missouri-based nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing the trauma experienced by residents) for staff training and group therapy sessions in 2015, 2016, and 2017, it was evident that we needed to use district funds to hire therapists to support staff even more.

Secondary trauma is a very serious issue. It was incumbent upon me as a leader to authorize the hiring of two therapists specifically for our staff only that were separate from human resources and separate from any type of health care plan. They're solely dedicated to walking through the schools and being on call 24 hours a day for any staff member who is suffering from secondary trauma or trauma in their personal life, while trying to sustain a successful professional life.

EDUTOPIA: What's the risk if we don't address secondary trauma among staff?

MCCOY: Emotions can kill you softly. How do you magnify, lift up, and help an educator to be successful? You empower them to be mentally agile, mentally strong, physically strong, and provide the culture and climate that says, "You're home and home feels good, even in the midst of pain." When nothing else helps, love lifts students, staff, parents, and your peers-your colleagues-through tough situations.

People don't care what you know until they know that you care, so let's make sure that [educators] know that we care every day. Let's make sure the system builds in caring in a greater way than we did yesterday. We can see each other, support each other, be sufficient, and have success.

But that's only possible if you really [care about] your people. And this is the best way to serve: to be in tune with how your staff are doing today. Ask: How they are feeling? How has their mental health been? How has home been? What can we do to support you?

EDUTOPIA: Is there an end goal? Will the work ever end?

Already I see an incredible amount of willingness and action among staff to talk about how they are doing. And they're not just talking about it-they're making it a part of every lesson, every activity, every meeting, every structure: How do you feel? Did we honor you? Did we honor all voices? Do you feel lifted up or do you feel drained? Do we need to pause longer?

The wraparound services have become robust, but you just have to keep building to make [them] bigger and better. My goal is to do this for even more districts: to support other states, to make sure that they have the organizational infrastructure surrounding them to have the wraparound supports and services and mental health guidance that they need.

But administrators must be much wiser about the mental health of all staff and have a list of accommodations and modifications within all policies and procedures.

Use Maslow before Bloom for all, including staff. This means that time and money must be spent on promoting happiness, emotional assessments, wellness coordinators and advocates, support groups, grief groups, and ongoing feedback and temperature checks of each individual, department, and building. This is the most important part of every day, every lesson, every relationship-"How are you doing?" comes before "What do you know or need to know?" and "How are we doing?" comes before "What do we need to know or do?"

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'You Can't Lead on Empty': On Supporting Staff With Vicarious Trauma

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Descending from three generations of ministers and church pastors, Dr. Art McCoy remembers growing up with "a passion for helping people, healing hurt, and transforming minds"-but he was determined to take his passion "beyond the walls of a religious institution." For McCoy, a school building became his church.

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Headline after headline over the past month have proclaimed a national teacher shortage-one that's " really bad" or at " catastrophic" levels. The issue has even risen to the attention of the White House.

But how bad is it, really?

Two new studies, both published in August by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, attempt to uncover concrete information about teacher shortages and turnover rates during the pandemic. Both teams of researchers ran into considerable limitations that make it impossible to collect real-time, comprehensive data to quantify the extent of a national shortage.

What that all means, they say, is that states, districts, and policymakers need granular data to help them tailor solutions-but right now often don't have access to it.

"Without understanding with detailed data the nature of the problem, we may try to solve it with solutions that are inappropriate for the way that shortages are playing out," said Matthew Kraft, an associate professor of education and economics at Brown and an author of one of the papers.

For instance, he said, policymakers might assume that teacher shortages are universal and enact broad initiatives to attract more people into the profession-without any regard for where those people end up. In reality, the shortages might be more acute in certain areas of the country or in certain schools, and effective policies would target those areas.

Teacher shortages in certain subject areas (like special education or high school math) and certain locales (like rural areas) have been perennial issues for years. School districts have also long been trying to recruit and retain more teachers of color.

But since the pandemic, teachers have signaled that they're more inclined to quit their jobs, citing high stress, low pay, and a lack of respect. And many school districts have reported having a hard time filling staff vacancies at the start of this school year.

Here's what the new research could-and couldn't-find out about the national landscape.

One study tracks reports across the country

Tuan Nguyen, an assistant professor at Kansas State University, Chanh Lam, a data analyst and Ph.D. graduate student at Kansas State, and Paul Bruno, an assistant professor of education policy at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, have spent years trying to determine the exact scope of the national teacher shortage.

"When we started this project two years ago, we thought there has got to be a national or federal database on vacancy [rates]. But we couldn't find anything like that," Nguyen said.

Then, the researchers analyzed federal data sources, including student and teacher populations and the annual completion numbers for teacher-certification programs in each state, to put together a comprehensive picture of teacher shortages.

"That's a substantial number of students who aren't being served" by a qualified teacher, Nguyen said.

It's also a conservative estimate, because the researchers weren't able to collect comprehensive information for 13 states, including populous states like California, Oregon, Louisiana, Ohio, and New York. "It's unclear whether the data doesn't exist or they don't have the personnel or capacity to produce that information," Nguyen said.

And while some of the data come from the 2021-22 school year, other states reported data dating as far back as 2014. The researchers used this data in absence of anything more recent, but it's likely that the number of vacancies have changed since then.

The analysis also shows that shortages are not uniform across the United States. States in the South had much higher vacancy rates than states in the Northeast, for example.

"For some states and some regions, it is particularly severe," Nguyen said. "In a sense, it's ubiquitous, but it's not all at the same level."

A second study analyzes turnover rates

All of them had limitations. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provides monthly national employment updates, but it lumps together higher education and private schools alongside K-12 public schools. The National Center for Education Statistics collects nationally representative K-12 employment data, but it is released on a delay of about a year or more. And data from state education departments is usually more detailed and timely, but the approaches to reporting the data vary significantly by state, making it difficult to compare numbers.

Why did overall employment decline while teacher turnover stayed relatively consistent? The researchers speculated that it's because of weak hiring through the summer of 2020, given budget shortfalls, and high attrition among district support staff.

Still, it's hard to draw any definitive conclusions from these findings, given the lack of reliable and comparable data. The researchers noted that until now, compiling this data wasn't a high priority for states.

"There seems to be not a universally agreed need for showing the size and scope of teacher shortages across different school contexts," Bleiberg said.

Kraft said he expects states to eventually beef up their data collection and reporting systems-either out of their own volition or because of federal incentives. While teacher shortages are not new, they have never captured national attention to this extent, he said.

"There have been real, longstanding shortages in some schools and some subjects for a decade in this country," Kraft said. "In my view, the fact that we're only talking about those localized shortages now is the story. That is the crisis. Why have we effectively accepted the fact that some schools just aren't able to get the teachers they need and that every student deserves?"

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How Bad Is the Teacher Shortage? What Two New Studies Say

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Headline after headline over the past month have proclaimed a national teacher shortage-one that's " really bad" or at " catastrophic" levels. The issue has even risen to the attention of the White House. But how bad is it, really?

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hat tip to jamie!

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ROANOKE, Va. - Schools across the country are struggling to close the teacher shortage gap.

Last year, there were at least 2,500 unfilled teaching positions statewide, according to the Virginia Department of Education's staffing and vacancy report.

"Because of everything that has been happening with the pandemic, sometimes teachers aren't respected, at that point a lot of teachers are leaving or people are not coming into the teaching profession," said Lorraine Lange, Hollins director of the Master of Arts in Teaching, Master of Arts in Teaching and Learning, and Master of Arts in Liberal Studies programs.

To help close the gap, Hollins University is offering local school divisions the opportunity to help teachers get the education they need.

According to Hollins University, the initiative will help teachers fulfill the requirements for a full teaching license.

Roanoke City Public Schools recently joined the Hollins Education Program, the release said.

"Hollins has been an invaluable partner to RCPS, tailoring instruction to our teachers' needs so they, in turn, have the skills and knowledge to meet the needs of our students," said RCPS Superintendent Verletta White. "Coursework is completed in a cohort with other RCPS teachers, which allows them to build a community of support while learning and on the job. This is invaluable as we work to attract and retain highly qualified educators in our school division."

White said the initiative is grant-funded to ensure there are no economic barriers to receiving teacher certification.

"They've gotten a grant from Virginia, and they are actually paying for some of their teachers to get their certification," Lange explained.

The release said that Hollins will also work with North Cross School to provide teachers with the ability to earn a graduate degree.

"Their teachers are getting their master's with the support of the administration so that they will stay. It's being used as a perk for retaining teachers and helping the teachers be better teachers."

Lord Botetourt High School dealt with a teacher shortage for their dual enrollment math courses in 2021, according to the release. As a result, Hollins began offering classes to LBHS teachers so that they could eventually qualify to teach dual enrollment courses.

"We are proud to help teachers," Lange said. "But the real winners are the students."

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Hollins University partners with local schools to fight teacher shortage

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ROANOKE, Va. - Schools across the country are struggling to close the teacher shortage gap. Last year, there were at least 2,500 unfilled teaching positions statewide, according to the Virginia Department of Education's staffing and vacancy report.

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Recruiting Black Students in High School to the Teaching Profession

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Recruiting Black Students in High School to the Teaching Profession

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Even as some current teachers are leaving the education workforce-or, at the very least, considering it-plenty of would-be teachers are opting for other career paths, creating a worrisome landscape where there are neither enough teachers right now, nor expectations to recover the dearth in the future.

This is partly a pandemic consequence, but also the result of a years-long decline in the attractiveness of teaching as a profession. And numerous efforts are underway to address the shortage, at least in the immediate term.

One fledgling effort, based out of Pittsburgh, aims to reinvigorate the current educator workforce while also looking ahead to build a pipeline of enthusiastic eventual educators. And in this case, the work is specifically focused on Black educators, present and future.

The initiative, called Genius, Joy and Love: A Focus on Black Students, is the brainchild of Valerie Kinloch, dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Education. And its inaugural cohort wrapped up earlier this summer, on Aug. 4.

The four-week summer academy brought together 14 students-a combination of rising high school seniors and incoming college freshmen, primarily from Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS)-to energize them around the idea of becoming teachers and to preview for them what the college experience will be like.

Students in the inaugural cohort pose for a photo with Pitt School of Education Dean Valerie Kinloch (far left) during the Genius, Joy, and Love Celebration Luncheon on Aug. 4. (Credit: University of Pittsburgh School of Education)

"My intention was to really work with school districts, particularly PPS, to figure out ways to encourage and inspire and motivate more students to see education-and I should say teaching-as a career path and lifelong profession," explains Kinloch.

Currently, only 4 percent of K-12 teachers in Pennsylvania identify as Black, according to Kinloch, which has bearings on the future teacher workforce, too.

"If our students do not see at least one teacher who reflects their racial background, they start wondering if this is a profession they should enter."

- Valerie Kinloch, dean of the Pitt School of Education

"If our students do not see at least one teacher who reflects their racial background, they start wondering if this is a profession they should enter," she says. "Across the state, more needs to be done."

Indeed, this idea is one that has been supported again and again by research: Black students-and especially Black males-experience numerous benefits, including higher college enrollment rates, from having at least one Black teacher growing up.

Inspiring Students to Become Teachers

Taliah Baldwin had at least three Black teachers throughout her school career, and it's part of why she now wants to become a teacher too, she says.

This week, Baldwin is busy getting settled into her residence hall at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, where she is set to begin her freshman year of college. She's studying early childhood education.

Baldwin, 18, spent some of her last weeks before college attending the student summer academy. She has known for some time that she wanted to become a teacher-Baldwin graduated from Brashear High School, a PPS school with a teaching magnet program for students interested in pursuing a path in education. But the Genius, Joy and Love program was different, geared specifically toward Black students like her.

Like the other students who participated in the summer program, Baldwin is a recipient of the Pittsburgh Promise's Advancing Educators of Color (AEC) scholarship, which seeks to bring more Black teachers into PPS over the next seven years. The AEC scholarship covers the full cost of college for select PPS students who are pursuing their teaching certificates and who agree to teach in PPS for at least five years after their college graduation. Genius, Joy and Love is intended to complement that scholarship program by engaging the students who have expressed an interest in education and preparing them for the academic pace and rigor of college.

For four weeks, she and a dozen or so peers heard from guest speakers, went on field trips to schools and museums in the area and participated in a weekly yoga practice with meditation.

Every morning, they recited the poem " Our Deepest Fear " by Marianne Williamson, which begins, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. ..."

They learned about STEM and literacy and mental health. They wrote their own poetry and connected the dots between academic success and social-emotional development. They visited university campuses. They worked on telling their own unique stories, something they'll need to do as they write essays for their college applications. And they talked about the differences between "school," which is tinged with oppression and negativity for some students, and "education," which is near-boundless.

Genius, Joy and Love students participate in a yoga and mindfulness session led by Pitt School of Education faculty members. (Credit: University of Pittsburgh School of Education)

Baldwin says she left the program feeling more confident and inspired, in part because of the speakers who came through and the lessons she learned, but also because she was surrounded by adult leaders such as Kinloch and April Warren-Grice, whom she views as role models.

"Everyone who was there had some kind of impact on me," Baldwin shares. "Even those who were quiet, they still had some awesome things to say. ... I still can't believe it's over."

One particular point of pride of the program for Kinloch is that about half of the 14 students were male. If Black teachers are underrepresented in education, Black male teachers are especially so.

But it was more than just numbers that made the program so rewarding, notes Warren-Grice, one of the project coordinators for Genius, Joy and Love.

"What also stood out to me was those Black males were the leaders" of the program, Warren-Grice recalls. "Many of those young men actually sat in the front and center of the room and were completely engaged. They shared a lot. It was just, like, wow. Because a lot of times that's not what you see in schools."

More often, Warren-Grice adds, Black male students are chastised in schools. But when they are in learning environments that embrace and support their "genius," she says, schools will likely see the type of engagement and leadership she saw this summer.

Encouraging Educators to 'Think Outside the Box'

As the students' summer academy got underway, the other half of the Genius, Joy and Love initiative-an institute for educators-also kicked off, intending to remind existing Black educators why they got into this work in the first place.

"A lot of times educators feel restricted-teach to standards, teach to the test-but really you can learn in any place, wherever you are," says Warren-Grice. "It gave educators permission to be, to dream, to think outside the box."

"A lot of times educators feel restricted. [This program] gave educators permission to be, to dream, to think outside the box."

- April Warren-Grice, project coordinator for Genius, Joy and Love

Fatima Brunson, another project lead, adds that "it was really about supporting educators to break out of the fold, pushing back against stagnation, needing transformation."

The educator institute ran for two weeks, compared to the students' four, and overlapped so that the two groups spent at least one day together, at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh.

Many participants noted this as one of the most powerful parts of the program, Kinloch says.

"Students were able to hear what teachers were grappling with, and teachers were able to hear what students want for teaching and learning experiences. They want to be seen, they want to be heard, they want to be taught different types of books," Kinloch explains.

Those exchanges, plus "field trips" to a local charter school and an independent school housed on Pitt's campus, left students with a greater understanding of the challenges of a teaching career, but also with a taste of how rewarding it can be, Kinloch adds.

"Many came back [from the schools] and said, 'We know it's hard, we know teachers are under fire, but do you see these young kids and how they're reacting to us because we look like them?'" Kinloch recalls. "That was the turning moment, when they were able to say, 'This is hard work-the attacks and assaults and public narratives are difficult-but we can't give up.'"

It was only the first cohort of a program that Kinloch hopes to run annually for many years to come. But already, it has made a lasting impression on the dean.

"To see the lightbulb going off for teachers the way it did for students? It leaves me hopeful," she says. "These two programs are the highlights of my almost six years of being here" as dean of the school of education.

And will those 14 students actually become classroom teachers in a few years? Kinloch says, "I assume the majority will. All of them want to."

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To Build a Pipeline of Black Teachers, This Program Starts Recruiting in High School - EdSurge News

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Even as some current teachers are leaving the education workforce-or, at the very least, considering it-plenty of would-be teachers are opting for other career paths, creating a worrisome landscape where there are neither enough teachers right now, nor expectations to recover the dearth in the future.

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Organizing schools so teachers can succeed

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Organizing schools so teachers can succeed

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ORGANIZING SCHOOLS SO TEACHERS CAN SUCCEED.pdf

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How district leaders create caring organizations

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How district leaders create caring organizations

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How district leaders create caring organizations - kappanonline.org

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A culture of caring begins with district leaders who cultivate conditions that address everyone’s social and emotional needs.

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How one district created a program to recruit and retain 100 men of color

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A South Carolina district superintendent explains how a pioneering initiative is already achieving success — and offers promise for the future.

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Building Ethnoracially Diverse Teaching Force

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Building Ethnoracially Diverse Teaching Force

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High School Programs to Cultivate Future Teachers

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High School Programs to Cultivate Future Teachers

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About PDK About Phi Delta Kappan About Alexander Russo and The Grade Advertise Permission Requests Contact us

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Rodney Robinson's Work in Richmond City 

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Rodney Robinson's Work in Richmond City 

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Dream4RPS Goals

ACTION 2.1 - TOP TALENT: Redesign the human resources department to ensure that: 1)RPS is able to fill every vacancy with a highly skilled professional; and 2) both our employees and our applicants receive outstanding customer service.

ACTION 2.2 - DIVERSE TEACHERS: Launch an effort explicitly focused on increasing and retaining the number of male minority educators in RPS.

ACTION 2.5 - EQUITY AND INCLUSION: Provide ongoing training to help RPS staff identify and confront our implicit biases with respect to race, economic status, country of origin or citizenship status, LGBTQ identification, and other elements of personal identity. In doing so, affirm our commitment to ALL students and staff.

A US Department Of Education study found a positive relationship between the presence of teachers of color and the achievement of all students. When teachers of color are present, there are several benefits for ethnic and minority students: We want to improve students' academic, social, and professional outcomes by recruiting, retaining, and professionally developing male educators of color.

They are represented in fewer numbers in special education.

There is a decrease in absenteeism.

Parents and students are more involved in school activities.

Black children who get a Black teacher in the elementary grades are 39% less likely to drop out of high school and 19% more likely to go on to college.

Program Components

Steering Committee - A committee of veteran Richmond Public Schools Male Educators of Color who provide mentorship and direction of the RVA MenTeach program. They meet once a month to provide direction and support to Male Educators of Color and decide on special recognitions for the program.

Professional Development/Mentorship - RVA MenTeach will provide support for first- and second-year male teachers of color in the district to supplement the New Teacher Mentorship Program offered to all teachers. RVA MenTeach will provide culturally competent professional development for all teachers to strengthen student outcomes.

Licensure and Certification Support - RVA MenTeach will work collaboratively with Talent Office and Offices of Curriculum and Support to establish a licensure support programs to help male teachers of color and all teachers of color in the district move from provisionally licensed to obtaining a professional teacher's licensure by the state of Virginia.

Partnerships - RVA MenTeach will work to establish partnerships with local non-profits, the philanthropic community, colleges/universities, and national teacher recruitment organizations to support efforts to recruit and retain male educators of color in the district and build the teacher pipeline.

Recognition and Celebrations - RVA MenTeach will regularly celebrate the accomplishments of Male Educators of Color in Richmond Public Schools. RVA MenTeach will recognize students who exemplify the qualities of past Male Educators of Color in Richmond Public Schools

RVA Men Teach HBCU Teacher Residency

RVA Men Teach has partnered with Virginia State University and Virginia Union University to create a teacher residency program for male minority teachers. Residents will earn a masters degree in Elementary Education or Special Education will working as a long term substitute teacher for one residency year in Richmond Public Schools. VSU/VUU and RVA Men Teach will provide courses, mentoring, pedagogical support, and instructional coaching during their resident year. Courses will be a hybrid mix of in person and online classes. Residents will earn up to $28/hour during their residency year.

Minimum Hiring & University Program Standards:

Bachelor's degree or the equivalent in experience in the field of education,

A passion for children/young people and teaching

Excellent oral, written, and interpersonal communication skills

Strong organizational skills

Ability to work efficiently and independently,

Passion to become a teacher leader for high-need schools

Demonstrates experience working in a diverse environment, with a strong commitment to VSU/VUU and cultural responsiveness.

Candidate commits to 3 years of teaching in Richmond or Petersburg after receiving their Master's in Education with the school division

Apply at https://www.vsu.edu/admissions/apply/graduate-apply/index.php

VCU DISTINGUISHED FELLOWS

The goal of our partnership with the Distinguished Fellows program is to develop prospective middle and high school students, preservice, and current teachers from underserved, socio-economically disadvantaged, and educationally at-risk backgrounds to have a unified transition for entering and staying in the teaching profession. Our program will provide mentoring, leadership skill, character development, and a safe space for these individuals to learn and grow together.

This initiative will have a significant impact on male educators of color who currently represent only 2% of the teacher workforce. This collaboration with Richmond Public Schools is to provide a pathway for diversifying the teacher workforce in our local communities, focusing especially on those individuals from underserved, socio-economically disadvantaged, and educationally at-risk communities (e.g., male educators of color).
We are now accepting applicants for the 2021-22 academic school year. Please apply via our online form.

Leading Men Fellowship

The Literacy Lab's Leading Men Fellowship creates opportunities for young men of color and increases representation in the field of education. Leading Men Fellows are young men of color who have recently graduated from high school and participate in a year-long, residency-style experience in which they provide evidence-based literacy support to pre-kindergarten students while receiving robust coaching and professional development and gaining valuable experience. Learn more.

Contact Us!

Rodney A. Robinson
Sr. Advisor Teacher Pathways
RVA Men Teach
2019 National Teacher of the Year
Yale National Fellow 2011, 2014 & 2018
804-780-1750
Email

Unique Impact, Unique Burdens: Exploring the Black Male Educator Experience

The Leading Men Fellowship Ascend II: Forging the Narrative

Race & Education | The Invisible Tax

Black Boys Film

Pushout: The Criminalization of Young Black Girls

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ACTION 2.1 - TOP TALENT: Redesign the human resources department to ensure that: 1)RPS is able to fill every vacancy with a highly skilled professional; and 2) both our employees and our applicants receive outstanding customer service. ACTION 2.2 - DIVERSE TEACHERS: Launch an effort explicitly focused on increasing and retaining the number of male minority educators in RPS.