Chapter 9: Recruitment Programs and Partnerships to Grow your Own Teachers

Our partnerships to Grow Our Own Teachers were created to address the alarming national teacher shortage and issues surrounding the recruitment and retention of effective teachers. We established the foundation of these partnerships through strong relationships, a common understanding and need, honest and open communication, and shared commitments. Several powerful partnerships have enabled our College of Education to gain momentum to support our local Grow Our Own Teachers initiative. Recruitment collaborations developed with our local high schools include high school education pathways, the early childhood education pathway collaborative, K-Credit, Future Georgia Educators Day, the Impacting Student Learning Conference, the special education buddy program, and Georgia Future Educators’ Signing Day. Internal and external recruitment strategies include “Trick or Teach,” a recruiting hashtag, apple clings, COE ambassadors, athletic ambassadors, and alumni ambassadors. Minority recruitment strategies include storytelling, Man Cave Mondays, and our Minority Males Transforming Education Summit. Other unique recruitment strategies include our paraprofessional to teacher program, Troops to Teachers, and Teach Richmond. Infrastructure to support all of these recruitment and retention efforts includes our partner school network, the East P-20 Collaborative, and our induction collaborative.