Virginia Commonwealth University has received a $5.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education that it will use to put some of the nation's best teachers into Richmond Public Schools.
The grant will allow the university to create a teacher-residency program that will be modeled after medical residency programs. It's a four-year program that includes training and teaching. During the first year, individuals will be mentored under master teachers in their classrooms while doing their coursework at VCU.
In the second year, they'll become classroom teachers, and the expectation is that they'll remain at some of the city's neediest schools for three years. Teachers will have access to career coaches during their first and second years in the classroom. In the third year, the teachers will receive leadership training.
As with other residency programs, the grant provides money for the individual's tuition and a yearly living stipend, and noor low-cost housing will be provided for them while they remain teachers in the city schools.
"Its really a very powerful model," said Terry Dozier, director of the Center for Teacher Leadership at VCU.
The program is based on similar successful programs that were piloted in school divisions in Chicago, Boston and Denver a few years ago, Dozier said.
The first cohort of 20 individuals will start next summer, Dozier said, and they'll be recruited from all over the country. Candidates must have a bachelor's degree. In all, the grant will pay for 80 people to participate in the program.
VCU is the only grant recipient in Virginia, and it will be working only with Richmond schools. Dozier said she'll be looking for teachers to serve as master teachers and career coaches over the next year of the program's development.
Darlene Currie, director of professional development for Richmond Public Schools, said school officials are excited to be able to work with VCU. She said the school division will benefit from a strong group of teachers who will not only learn its culture and instructional model but live near where they work.
"I think that's so important," Currie said, "to be contributing to the community that they teach in."
She said because the resident teachers will have the opportunity to witness the best teaching practices in the classroom under a master teacher during their first year, they could be more open to trying new teaching strategies.
"They can learn from their mistakes and they can learn from what they've done right," she said.
Contact Holly Prestidge at (804) 649-6945 or hprestidge@timesdispatch.com.
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