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2011 North Carolina Grantee Abstracts.

Grantee Name:Guilford County Schools
Project Name:GCS STEM Alternative Licensure Academy
Project Director: Shannon Brown  336-335-3294
Partner Districts/LEAs:Guilford County Schools

PROJECT ABSTRACT

Guilford County Schools, a high-need district in central North Carolina, seeks grant funding to create a STEM Alternative Licensure Academy with the goal of increasing the number of minority STEM teachers within our local district. We will do this in partnership with four local Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the New Teacher Center in Santa Cruz, CA. By the end of the project period, the Academy will have recruited, licensed and supported no less than 15 recent college graduates/graduate students per year to become science, technology, engineering or math teachers for a program total of 60 teachers. We will achieve this through the implementation of six services that are tied directly to measurable project outcomes:

The hallmark of this project is that it will be housed within North Carolina’s first in-house licensure program for teachers, the Guilford County Schools Alternative Certification Track. The original program’s success lends great promise to the success of our new scope of work, the STEM Alternative Licensure Academy.

Grantee Name:North Carolina New Schools Project
Project Name:The North Carolina New Schools Project Innovative Pathways to STEM Teaching Careers
Project Director:Dana D. Wallace  919-277-3780
Partner Districts/LEAs:Caldwell County Schools, Cumberland County Schools, Durham County Schools, Wayne County Schools

PROJECT ABSTRACT

The North Carolina New Schools Project (NCNSP), a statewide public-private partnership that sparks and supports innovation in secondary schools, in cooperation with four high need school districts in its network, proposes the development and implementation of an alternative teacher licensing program. The program will be developed for the purpose of enhancing the pool of highly qualified licensed STEM teachers to NC school districts that have traditionally had problems recruiting and hiring teachers with the life and professional experiences that contribute to successfully graduating students ready for college, careers and life. In addition, the proposed program with its focus on developing highly qualified teachers in STEM fields, will recruit and select college graduates with STEM backgrounds who have interests in teaching, and will then provide them with an opportunity to participate in a highly focused, classroom-based, tuition-free licensure preparation program.

NCNSP and its network of schools have established the following project goals:

NCNSP and its partner schools will develop twelve sites in its network of more than one hundred innovative high schools that will host recent college graduates and mid-career professionals, possessing the aptitude and desire to go into teaching as a career, in an intense, 120-day preparation program. The proposed program will blend mentored teacher candidate internships, a unique on-line curriculum delivered by WIDE World developed at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and elements of the NCNSP Integrated System of School Support Services to prepare teachers to work in the innovative professional cultures of redesigned and early college high schools.

Grantee Name:The University of North Carolina General Administration
Project Name:North Carolina Innovative Statewide Program to Improve the Recruitment of Educators (NC INSPIRE)
Project Director: George A. Meyers  919-843-6733
Partner Districts/LEAs:Caldwell County, Durham County, Gates County, Harnett County, Johnston County, McDowell County, Polk County, Rockingham County, Rowan- Salisbury County, Rutherford County, Swain County, Transylvania County.

PROJECT ABSTRACT

The University of North Carolina General Administration (UNC GA) in partnership with 12 rural high-need Local Education Agencies (LEAs) and four institutions of higher education is requesting funding from the Transition to Teaching grant program for the implementation of the North Carolina Innovative Statewide Program to Improve the Recruitment of Educators (NC INSPIRE). NC INSPIRE will expand upon the recruitment efforts of the Transition to Teaching: NC TEACH programs by providing an innovative high quality alternative licensure route to the classroom which includes a research-based curriculum and comprehensive support. NC INSPIRE provides tuition support for participants to complete a combination licensure and advanced degree program through high quality MAT cohort programs at selected UNC system campuses. In addition, NC INSPIRE provides an intensive new teacher induction program and ongoing professional development opportunities to prepare selected highly qualified individuals to successfully teach in rural high-needs schools. The program also provides each participant with a mentor/coach for on-going support throughout the participants’ first two years in the classroom. NC INSPIRE intends to recruit 120 mid-career individuals and new or recent college graduates as potential candidates to teach in high-need licensure areas (specifically secondary and middle grades mathematics and science, and K-12 Special Education as determined by the needs of the partnering high-need school districts). NC INSPIRE participants will commit to teach in a North Carolina high-need rural LEA for a minimum of three years. Through NC INSPIRE’s unique design and comprehensive combination of services, the program strategically addresses and supports state and federal education legislation, state teacher quality efforts, state recruitment efforts, state beginning teacher support policies, and the need for an innovative alternative certification program focused on recruiting teachers of high-need subject areas for rural high-need schools in high-need LEAs.


 
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Last Modified: 10/04/2011