UCM Receives DEWEY Funding to Increase Recruitment and Retention of Teaching Candidates

 

As the University of Central Missouri (UCM) continues improving recruitment and retention of teaching candidates, it has received a $70,000 DEWEY Award from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to help with those efforts.

According to DESE, the (Developing an Educator Workforce that Expands Yearly) Awards provided funding to 15 educator preparation providers and five two-year institutions of higher education. The money may be used to help increase the number of teacher candidates in teacher preparation programs and to strengthen support for current candidates to increase retention in teacher preparation programs.

Priority was given to projects aimed at expanding the number of teacher candidates who come from geographic areas of Missouri where school districts are under-resourced or are from groups whose representation in the Missouri teacher corps is significantly disproportionate relative to the school-age population in the state.

“We feel a huge responsibility to help grow and sustain the profession. We feel like we do a really good job preparing educators, but this money allows us to support them a little better and to recruit some new teacher candidates,” said Ann McCoy, professor and interim vice provost for Academic Programs. “Our teacher education faculty are concerned about the current teacher shortage and hope our efforts will help to address the shortage.”

This is the second year UCM has received a DEWEY Award. McCoy said UCM has a two-fold plan to continue the work that began last year and build on existing efforts with rural, suburban and urban school districts.

“The approach that we took was to apply for funding that would help us recruit teacher candidates to campus and then also to support our teacher candidates who are working toward graduation and certification,” McCoy explained.

The DEWEY Award will help cover the cost of two recruitment events on campus, which UCM has hosted for several years. Future Teacher Academy occurred in early October, hosting nearly 600 middle and high school students from about 60 school districts who expressed interest in teaching. Teach It Forward will be in the spring. 

UCM also works with organizations in the Kansas City area, such as the Latinx Education Collaborative, Teachers Like Me and The BLOC KC.

“These organizations work to recruit candidates from underrepresented groups to pursue teaching and then to support them as they become teachers,” McCoy added. “So, we're using some of the money to develop partnerships with them to try to help diversify the teacher workforce. One of our goals is to make the teaching workforce better reflect the classrooms of children.”

Additionally, UCM sponsors an initiative on campus twice a year that brings together administrators from rural school districts. Using the DEWEY funding, UCM is providing 10 scholarships to students in participating districts.

On the retention side, UCM is helping its education students with the extra expenses they may encounter on their path to graduation.

“Education majors have a lot of field experiences that they have to complete,” McCoy said. “They have to drive to different schools. They have to pay for background checks. There's a lot of expense associated with becoming a teacher toward the end of their time here. So we've built in some money to provide them with small scholarships that can help them pay those costs to finish up their time and help them become certified.”

Vouchers are also available to help cover the cost of certification exams for some teaching candidates.

For more about UCM’s education programs, visit ucmo.edu/college-of-education.