Teacher Education
A short video clip on first steps to take to start an alternative licensure teacher program
Hear East Tennessee State University describe the first steps you should take to start an alternative licensure program for teacher candidates.
Jessica Hurdley:
For those looking to implement similar accelerated programs, what advice would you give them?
Megan Krupa:
Where to start? First it would be checking on communication with the school districts. What are the needs? Do your districts find certain content areas harder to staff than others? Is there a rationale behind that? Some of our degree programs, unfortunately, we’ll go into the career of their content. So physics for example, that’s been an area that we’ve kind of struggled to recruit and increase our teacher placements in that area. So I would start there, know your area, know your districts, know what they need, and then also talk to your partnering colleges within your university. At our secondary level, our programs actually live in arts and sciences, so really I have very close communication with each of those departments so that we’re talking about what it means to be a teacher in that content area and just opening communication and seeing what’s possible. I mean, that’s been the biggest lesson for me is a lot of things I didn’t know were even options until I ask. So I’ll ask and then if they say no, we continue moving forward, but just start at the beginning with the districts and work through your university would be my advice.