A successful program that has turned clerical staff into plans to expand to license middle and high school teachers across the state. Central Oregon schools have had a difficult time retaining teachers, and the program run by George Fox University aims to rapidly train teachers to fill the need in rural schools. The university is hoping to gain permission from the Oregon Teacher Standards and Practices Commission by late March to expand its program. The success of the accelerated teacher training program highlights what’s worked so far and bodes well for potential expansion of the program, officials say. George Fox University has partnered with Warm Springs since 2015 to train elementary teachers, and more than one-third of the teachers who currently work at the Warm Springs K-8 Academy graduated from the program. The university also started a partnership with Redmond School District four to five years ago. “With Warm Springs, we’re empowering Native American teachers from the community to have college access,” said Katy Turpen, an elementary education professor at George Fox University who oversees the accelerated licensing program. “Small schools are struggling, and our candidates have come from all over. ” Candidates are able to obtain either a bachelor of science in elementary education or a master of arts in teaching with a teaching license in 16 to 20 months, depending on the program and format. Since the start of the pandemic, classes have been held virtually one night a week and one Saturday a month. From the beginning, the idea behind the program has been to get people in classified staff positions into teaching positions. Classified staff include office workers, custodians and bus drivers. Even while working through the program, classified staff can stay in their positions full time. The program in Redmond has also launched a dual-language program and has recruited bilingual teachers. Heidi Gonzalez is working her way through the program in Redmond. She currently jumps from job to job, primarily working in the attendance office, occasionally serving as the librarian and teaching elementary students physical education at Hugh Hartman Elementary. Ideally, Gonzalez would like to move into teaching PE full-time once she has her license. She’ll be eligible for student teaching this spring and will graduate in April 2024. Multiple factors inspired Gonzalez to join the program, including that it is mainly composed of adults with families looking for their second start. “My cohort are parents, so everyone understands the struggle of being full-time parents,” she said. The program has been challenging because it is a lot of work in a short amount of time, but learning online has been helpful. It’s become a daily question from her three children of whether she has homework that day, she said. Gonzalez was apprehensive about starting the program, but eventually decided to “bite the bullet,” as she put it, and join. She’s especially excited to be able to use her fluency in Spanish to reach students across the language barrier in PE classes. Second-grade teacher Justine Keo currently teaches at the Warm Springs K-8 Academy, which is in the Jefferson County School District. After finishing her bachelor’s in human development and family sciences from Oregon State University-Cascades, Keo immediately plunged into the master of arts in teaching program out of Redmond. She graduated in 2016. “The program went above and beyond preparing us for being in the classroom,” she said. During a lesson planning activity, her instructors emphasized the importance of having a lesson plan organized down to the minute, like a vacation trip. This mindset helped her own lessons, as well as planning lessons for her substitutes so that they knew what they should be able to accomplish. Keo also earned a special education certification, since at the time she believed she wanted to go in that direction. Her mother is a special education assistant, so it was familiar, she said. Keo has always wanted to teach. “There was never really anything else,” she said. “I’m from Warm Springs, and it was always the plan to come home to teach. ” This year, Keo has 19 students in her second-grade classroom, 14 of them boys. “It’s been rowdy,” she said. Keo has memorabilia from George Fox University, Central Oregon Community College and OSU-Cascades around her room. It’s fun when her students take notice. “I’ve heard kids discussing them,” so they know college is an option, she said. -- Noemi Arellano-Summer, The Bulletin.