Program addresses teacher shortages
By Julie Rausch
 Laurie Kiss became a math teacher at Wichita Southeast High School because of a WSU program that helps address teacher shortages in Kansas. It puts people who have non-education degrees into high school classrooms while they work on their teaching certificates. |
If an alternative teacher certification option had not been available to Laurie Kiss, she wouldn’t be teaching mathematics at Wichita Southeast High School.
Fortunately an alternative teacher certification program is an option in Kansas through Wichita State University, and algebra and geometry students at Southeast have a quality teacher who values her students and loves her job.
Since beginning in 1996, the ATC program has helped address teacher shortages in Kansas by getting people who have non-education degrees into high school classrooms while they work on their teaching certificates.
Participants already have one or more degrees in biology, chemistry, physics, physical science, math, English, social studies, Spanish, French, art, music or physical education, but they want to teach.
It allows career changers to join the two-year graduate program, taking courses in the summer and working during the school year as a provisionally certified teacher, says Bob Lane, ATC program coordinator at WSU.
"Many of our students plan a year in advance to come into this program," says Lane. "That is because everyone in the program, no matter what institution they came from, must meet the very same program criteria as any other WSU major for the subject they plan to teach."
Lane, a former teacher and Wichita public school administrator before coming to WSU in 1995, interviews, advises, selects and helps find positions for applicants. Applicants must secure a job by an accredited school district before entering the program.
Lane also teaches seminars two nights a week and alternate Saturdays and does site visits with the students during the week. About half the students teach in the Wichita metro area, but some teach in districts as far away as Salina, Garden City, Bonner Springs, Junction City and Lyons.
WSU has 57 students in the program this year working in 29 Kansas school districts in 42 schools.
The program originally targeted returned Peace Corps volunteers. It has expanded to include teaching opportunities for degreed professionals from many walks of life.
"The program has grown rapidly — as has the need for teachers — particularly in the past three years," says Lane. The program has graduated 126 students; 77 had enrolled in the last three years. WSU has been the only institution in the state with an ATC program; however, Pittsburg State University began a program this spring with the University of Missouri-Kansas City for only the Kansas City area.
People in WSU’s ATC program include former attorneys, ministers, community college instructors, university adjuncts, retired military, returned Peace Corps volunteers, engineers and small business owners.
While earning her bachelor’s in mathematics in 1988 from Carroll College in Waukesha, Wis., Kiss hadn’t intended to make teaching a career. But while working as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she realized she wanted to spend more time with her students than on her own studies. Later she spent 27 months in the Peace Corps teaching math to 140 high school students in a village near Mombasa, Kenya, before learning about ATC programs from a brochure.
In March 1999, Kiss visited WSU’s program and she says the structure of the program, the convenience of the coursework and the people impressed her. She began nine hours at WSU in summer 1999 and started teaching at Southeast in fall 1999. She will become fully certified in May. Kiss expects to complete her master’s degree in curriculum and instruction May 2002.
"Every day I learn something new, but because of my experience nothing has surprised me," Kiss says. "I feel I was well prepared to teach high school and it is everything I thought it would be."
That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have challenges in her classroom such as behavioral issues. Fortunately, a required weekly seminar taught by Lane gives support to Kiss and her peers.
From the beginning Kiss says she has found the seminar invaluable. "It offers a cohort in the same boat as me, who can share the stress of the day," Kiss says. "It allows us a forum to express ideas and problems, talk about transitions and share experiences. I get teaching ideas from the group, as well as ideas to solve behavioral problems."
There are significant teacher shortages in Kansas, says Lane. When the 2000-2001 school year began there were more than 500 vacancies across Kansas at all levels. Statistics show that nearly 50 percent of Kansas teachers will be at retirement age in the next five to seven years.
"School districts are going all over the country recruiting and the pool they are recruiting from is getting smaller and smaller," Lane says. "Some districts in other states are offering signing bonuses."
Wichita Reps. Brenda Landwehr, Willa DeCastro and Steve Huebert are sponsoring legislation to make WSU’s ATC program a state model. WSU and other universities could fulfill an increasing need for quality teachers by expanding and starting new programs across the state.
"The bill would allow WSU to be the hub of alternate routes in working with other institutions," Lane says. "That would help the program grow and would help fulfill a crucial need in the schools to alleviate the teacher shortage with quality people who really want to be in the classroom.
"In the last year the Kansas State Department of Education has referred people to us, which gives us nice credibility," says Lane. "Superintendents and principals are aware of the program, and success stories are shared among administrators around the state."
Wichita East High School principal Katie McHenry hires provisionally certified teachers and says her experience with them has been "extraordinarily wonderful." She foresees a promising future for the program because it fulfills a huge niche. "The teachers from this program are advanced, calm and have so much life experience," she says.
For information about WSU’s alternative teacher certification program go to http://education.twsu.edu/ci/alternative_cert.html.
