Monfredo: Could a Future Worcester Teachers Program be the Answer for Recruitment?

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Saturday, July 06, 2019

John Monfredo, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER

Diversity among teachers in the Worcester Public Schools has been a “hot button” for many years due to a high minority population in our schools. Recruiting teachers of color has been a very difficult task across the nation, including Worcester, due to the fact that many do not go into this particular profession as a career. Minority recruitment of out of state individuals has always come up in discussions concerning teacher recruitment. However, what many of our readers may not know is that we have local programs within our high schools that encourage students, especially minorities, to go into the teaching profession.   This program, however, it needs to be expanded. More on that thought later in the story.

The Worcester Future Teachers Academy was started in the 1980’s at all of the comprehensive high schools.  The program ran after school one day a week. Due to funding, the program was cut at all of the high schools. However, South High continued with the program and later under the direction of Principal Maureen Binienda, now superintendent of schools, continued to run the program for its students as a club with a volunteer advisor. The program in recent years has been expanded to Worcester Technical High School and next year to North High School.

At present, Sara Grajales, a South High English teacher, who now has the title of assistant director of licensure officer, is the Worcester Future Teachers Advisor for the district. Most interesting is that Ms. Grajales was in the Worcester Future Teachers program many years ago as a student at South High. Now she works with her students to instruct, guide and support them as they move forward with their careers.   According to Ms. Sisa, many other students who went through the Future Teachers program have chosen teaching as their career and work in district,

Students who may be interested in a teaching career are encouraged at those schools to join the program and learn about the education profession. Students meet once a week, create and develop lessons in a subject area of their choice and give each other feedback. There is a strong partnership with Worcester State University.  Students who are members of the club and do well in school may enroll at the university.   Also, WSU does have a scholarship program available for those students based on need and merit. Most importantly, if these students continue to have the work ethics, succeed in college as a graduate from WSU with an education degree, and pass the state-mandated teacher test they are guaranteed a teaching position in the Worcester Public School.

As an extension of the program the students are enrolled in a summer workshop for one week at Worcester State University. The funding for the week has been supported by the Worcester Public Schools and the University.  Students have the opportunity to stay overnight on campus in July and use the college facilities to fully immerse themselves in college life.

This year the students moved into the  WSU dorms on Sunday and the next day subject seminars were taught by Worcester State University professors and Worcester Public  School teachers … activities included four academic sessions with university professors, information sessions with staff from admissions and diverse departments, summer reading, writing and presentations of lesson plans and some social activities.

Speakers during the week included college professors Dr. Ray Lewis and Margaret Mann and from the Worcester Public Schools Sara Grajales, Carlo DiBonaventura, Migdalia Platt and Laurie Dennis.  In addition, Superintendent Maureen Binienda and I also came by and encouraged the students to consider teaching as a career. I also had the opportunity to speak and listen to the students about this great experience that was taking place.  Most students came away with an appreciation of what their teachers have to do day in and day out to prepare for their classroom teaching.  As one of the students said, “Wow, this is hard work and requires lots of prep time!”

The students that I had the opportunity to engage in conversation were most excited about their ability to participate in the program and be on campus. One student stated that she loved the college food and the program gave her more incite in what the teaching profession is all about. Another student declared, “It gave us the faith that we can overcome adversity despite our finances, race, language and so much more and become teachers through hard work.”  To the delight of W.S.U., another student acknowledged, “With this experience, I found a new home for myself. I have decided to make WSU the first choice for my college.”   

In the future, my proposal as we move forward with Worcester Future Teachers is to expand the program to other high schools and start recruiting students in their freshmen year. We need to recruit the best and brightest students early on and I would recommend that our newly appointed Chief Diversity Officer along with Ms. Grajales reach out to the students and their parents. Students need to know how important the teaching profession is, how they can make a difference in this community and that with good grades they will have the opportunity to have a tuition free scholarship if they continue in the education program as long as they maintain a high GPA.  It’s a win-win program for the students and for the Worcester Public Schools. This program could become the city’s local pipeline for talented students to be trained as our next generation of teachers.

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