Gros is head custodian at Wyandotte, in this small town in southern Louisiana. She’s also a teacher-in-training," writes Kavitha Cardoza in The Hechinger Report & USA Today.
“We have overlooked a talent pool to our detriment,” said Joe Ross, president of the online Reach University. “These people have heart and they have the grit and they have the intelligence. There's a piece of paper standing in the way.”
Excerpts include:
Ross, of Reach University, said he often hears some variation of: “I had to choose between a job and a degree.” “What if we eliminate the question?” he said. “Let's turn jobs into degrees.”
When [teacher candidate Jacquelyne] Noble heard about Reach and the monthly tuition of $75 a month, she said, “My mouth hit the floor.”
In growing the Reach program, [Dean Kim] Eckert drew from her teacher-of-the-year class, hiring people who understood the realities of classroom management and could model what it’s like to be a great teacher. She shied away from those who haven’t proven themselves in the classroom, even if they have degrees from top universities. “Everybody thinks they can be a teacher because they've had a teacher,” she said, but that’s not true.
In Louisiana, Ross said he believes the organization could put a serious dent in the teacher vacancy numbers statewide. Some 84% of all parishes have signed on for Reach trainees, he said, and 650 teachers-in-training are enrolled. That amounts to more than a quarter of the teacher vacancy numbers statewide, 2,500.
She [teacher candidate Jenna Gros] said she loves how a teacher can shape a child’s future for the better. “That’s what a teacher is – a nurturer trying to provide them with the resources that they are going to need for later on in life."I think I can be that person,” she said. She pauses. “I know I can.”