Anna Wroten has been a paraeducator at Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) for sixteen years. Even with her passion for educating students—and her love for special education—she never considered making the transition to become a teacher. A single mother of two, who relied on her steady income, Wroten knew the training options that were available wouldn’t work for her.
“I had seen a few paras do a program where they take a para and throw you into the classroom without any of the actual teacher training,” Wroten says. “I had seen so many people crash and burn. I said, ‘If I ever do it, I want to do it where you actually get trained. I don’t want to be thrown into the lion’s den.’”
Then Wroten learned that BCPS was creating a teacher residency program with Loyola University Maryland’s School of Education. She knew the program would be rigorous because it would offer in-depth theoretical knowledge, practical hands-on learning, and supportive mentorship. The program felt like a good fit for her since she needed to remain employed while advancing her education.
The innovative teacher residency program, “Exceptional Teachers for Exceptional Learners,” builds on the strength of Loyola’s school-university partnerships. Teacher residencies are an evidence-based model for recruiting, preparing, and retaining high-quality teachers that is gaining widespread attention from state and federal policymakers.
Similar to a medical residency program, teacher candidates in this model spend an entire year learning to teach alongside an accomplished mentor teacher. Because teacher residencies provide living wages through paid residencies and financial assistance with tuition, they attract a diverse pool of aspiring teachers into the profession.
“We know that teachers are the number one in-school influence on student outcomes. Our nation’s schools need great teachers who reflect the diverse communities they serve,” says Afra Ahmed Hersi, Ph.D., dean of Loyola’s School of Education. “Yet, most states continue to struggle with addressing teacher shortages, often filling positions with underprepared teachers who are not able to provide children with the high-quality learning they need—and deserve.”
Although these programs are relatively new to Maryland, Hersi has been interested in teacher residency programs for years. When she became chair of Loyola’s teacher education department in 2017, she worked with faculty to shift the program to more of a clinical model with better coordination among school-based mentors, Loyola faculty, and clinical supervisors. When Hersi became dean of the School of Education, she joined Deans for Impact, a reform-oriented group that brought together national leaders and deans from around the country to discuss challenging problems in education. Those conversations and the insight she gained made her determined to bring a teacher residency model to the Baltimore area.
“This is coming out of ten years of research that [shows] we need to look at models for not only preparing teachers well in the profession, but also ensuring that they stay longer,” Hersi says. “The residency model has emerged as really effective.”
Teacher residencies align naturally with the mission of Loyola’s School of Education, working alongside students and communities to reimagine classrooms. A team of teacher educators and school system leaders from Loyola and BCPS worked with the National Center for Teacher Residency to develop and launch an innovative, high-quality teacher residency program designed to recruit and retain well-prepared special educators who reflect the diversity of the school communities they serve.
Loyola’s program aims to create a pipeline of new teachers dedicated to serving special needs students, addressing a critical shortage by reducing the financial barriers to entering the profession. So far, in Loyola’s first cohort of nineteen students, which includes 59% students of color, the program is seeing 100% retention.
One of those students is Karen Kershaw. As a paraeducator, she wanted to become a teacher, but she could not leave her paycheck behind to go to school. This program allows her to work toward that goal, while keeping her salary—and pursue the career she loves.
“I really like working with young children and helping them grow. I worked with special ed at my former school, and I really felt a connection working one-on-one with children,” says Kershaw, who is interning at Lutherville Lab Elementary School in the fifth-grade social emotional learning program. “The mentors are wonderful and are very helpful and understanding.”
Hersi sees the program as bringing a Jesuit approach to a complex problem. “Higher education is not just for the sake of producing knowledge,” she says. “As a Jesuit, Catholic university, we are called on to apply knowledge in service of equity and justice. We need to create evidence-based programs that ensure that we are committing to [become] a more just society and improve the human condition. This program provides the support to help people be their best self—and be the best in their roles. We are removing structures and barriers and making it possible to accomplish God’s plan for each of us.”
Striving to be the best in her role, Wroten is learning on the job in her internship at Elmwood Elementary in Overlea, MD. In her time there, she is advancing the education she started many years ago. She earned her Bachelor’s in psychology from Walden University and started working as a paraeducator when her son was in kindergarten and her daughter was a baby. Now, her son, Jameson, is a junior engineering major at Loyola, who stops by to say hello on the days when she has classes on Loyola’s campus.
The program is demanding, but Wroten knows she is on the path toward becoming a special educator. “We need quality educators, which is why I was so happy to do the program at Loyola. I wouldn’t have known how to write a lesson plan, and I wouldn’t know how to do some of the back-office stuff that some of the special educators do,” she says. “I’ve told so many people just how grateful I am that there is a program like this that takes people who are already in the field and says, ‘We understand that you can’t stop working. This is how we’re going to get you to where you need to be.’”
Article and photos contributed by Loyola University Maryland.