Where will new teachers come from? Community colleges offer a path.

In her second grade classroom outside Seattle, Fatima Nuñez Ardon often tells her students stories about everyday people realizing their dreams. One day, for example, she talked about Salvadoran American NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio and his journey to the International Space Station.

Another day, she says she told them her own life’s story – how she, an El Salvadoran immigrant who arrived in the U.S. in middle school speaking very little English, came to be a teacher. 

Ms. Nuñez Ardon took an unusual path to the classroom: She earned her teaching degree through evening classes at a community college, while living at home and raising her four children. 

Community college-based teaching programs like this are rare, but growing. They can dramatically cut the cost and raise the convenience of earning a teaching degree, while making a job in education accessible to a wider diversity of people.

In Washington state, for example, nine community colleges offer education degrees. Nationally, data from the Community College Baccalaureate Association (CCBA) indicates that six other states – Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada, and New Mexico – offer baccalaureate degrees, or bachelor’s degrees, related to K-12 education. Texas and Wyoming offer early childhood education degrees. 

The expansion comes at a good time: Teacher shortages have worsened in the past decade, as fewer undergraduates enter teacher training programs. A report in March from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education showed that the number of people completing a teacher education program declined by almost a third between the 2008-09 and 2018-19 academic years. And many educators fear the pandemic worsened the crisis.

More community colleges around the country are starting to offer teacher education, says CCBA President Angela Kersenbrock. In all, 51 community college-based K-12 teaching programs have launched across the country since the early 2000s. All of Washington’s teaching baccalaureate programs have received approval from the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges to launch since 2016. 

And they’re attracting students like Ms. Nuñez Ardon, who, in her mid-30s, became certified to run a K-8 classroom in June. It’s likely she wouldn’t have pursued a classroom career otherwise. 

“A highly rigorous program” 

Teacher shortages predate the pandemic. For years, the number of people graduating from teacher education programs has fallen short of teacher demand. In 2018, 57,000 fewer students nationwide earned education degrees than in 2011.  

A 2021 report from the state’s Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB) found that schools were forced to lean on individuals who had not completed certification requirements to fill the gaps, and waivers had risen to 8,080 in the 2019-20 school year, a spike from fewer than 2,800 a decade prior. 

The state in recent years has encouraged “Grow Your Own” programs, or alternative pathways to classroom certification that attract local talent. Some are run by districts, while others are college or university efforts. They’re seen both as a way to buffer the teacher shortage and to grow a workforce more representative of the student body. Statewide, 50% of Washington students are people of color, while 87% of classroom teachers are white. 

The PESB report indicates that community college baccalaureates in education are already helping ease the teacher shortage.

“It’s a highly rigorous program,” says Elizabeth Paulino, who runs Yakima Valley College’s teacher education baccalaureate program. 

The college’s model is much like others throughout the rest of the state. Teacher candidates come in with an associate degree and spend two years taking classes in education, primarily in the evenings. Then, weeks before the second and final year of the program begins, candidates begin a residency at a partner school. They are assigned mentors who come recommended by their principal or superintendent and have at least three years of classroom experience, Ms. Paulino says. 

While juggling their work and school load, teacher candidates are also taking a series of tests required by the state for certification. “By the time they finish their residency, they have fulfilled all of their requirements not only of the program but also of the state,” adds Ms. Paulino.

Pushback from universities

There has been pushback against community college baccalaureate degrees in education in Washington and nationally, as universities with teacher education programs grapple with a yearslong decline in enrollment, says Debra Bragg, the founder and former director of the University of Washington’s Community College Research Initiatives group. 

Community colleges argue that they’re a good place for teacher training because they’re open-access – there is no selective admissions process to get in – and that they “are attracting students that the universities probably are not attracting and probably won’t attract,” she says.

Ms. Nuñez Ardon says this was the case for her. She was unable to move because of her growing family, and the nearby University of Washington doesn’t offer a bachelor’s degree in teacher education. 

The cost was another important factor. Tuition and fees for one year at Western Washington University – one of the nearest public four-year universities – come to more than $10,700; when housing, meals, and supplies are factored in, the yearly cost is about $30,000. The program Ms. Nuñez Ardon attended at Highline College costs roughly $7,100 a year, allowed her to live at home, and accommodated her work schedule. 

Because of their local and open-access qualities, community colleges could help fill the teacher supply gap, says Dr. Bragg. What’s more, “If it’s important for us to prepare teachers who look like students in their community, representing that diversity of the community, then it might make sense to look at what the community colleges are doing.”

At Pierce College, paraprofessionals propelled the program. They were working in local school districts and enrolling in the early childhood education program with the hope of becoming certified teachers. But that associate degree program didn’t lead to teacher certification. 

When the college began considering an elementary education baccalaureate program to meet community interest, there was some pushback from Central Washington University, which is well-known for its teacher education program and shares a sub-campus with Pierce College.  

But leaders from the two colleges’ education departments came to realize that the college and university programs would serve different demographics, says Leesa Thomas, Pierce’s director of education programs. The result was a strengthened relationship between the two.

Extraordinary need

Many of Washington’s other education baccalaureate degrees grew in response to demand from local schools.

Connie Smejkal, Centralia College’s dean of teacher education, says area superintendents were calling frequently to say they were struggling to hire teachers. It also was tough to retain them because districts recruited anyone who applied, “rather than picking really high-quality candidates. Their need was extraordinary.” 

In fall of 2016, Centralia and Grays Harbor College launched a teacher education baccalaureate degree together, anticipating that neither would have enough students to run a full program on their own. Each planned to have an initial cohort of 12 teacher candidates. But Ms. Smejkal says student interest in the program was as hot as school demand: There were more than 80 applicants to Centralia alone for the first cohort. The school admitted 52 of them the first year.  

“We realized how thirsty the community was to become teachers,” she says. The next year, Centralia and Grays Harbor formed their own separate programs. Each welcomed their sixth cohort this fall, and between the two schools, 175 people have completed degrees. They each report that the majority of their graduates go on to teach in local classrooms. Ms. Smejkal says everyone from last year’s cohort who was interested in classroom teaching had signed a contract with a school before graduating. 

Peter Finch, superintendent of West Valley School District in Yakima, says he’s experienced no shortage of general education teachers since the launch of Yakima Valley College’s program. 

Teachers hired from the local program have so far been predominantly Latino, he says, and half have been bilingual Spanish-English speakers, better matching the district’s student demographic and support needs. Some new hires are now pursuing special education endorsements, which will eventually help to fill another gap. 

Meanwhile, Ms. Nuñez Ardon spends her days at Madrona Elementary, in the city of SeaTac, as a teacher and role model to young students she sees herself in – and in whom she hopes to inspire the same curiosity and passion for learning.

This story, produced by The Seattle Times, is part of an eight-newsroom collaboration that comprises the Monitor, AL.com, The Associated Press, The Dallas Morning News, The Fresno Bee, The Hechinger Report, and The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina, with support from the Solutions Journalism Network. Other stories in this occasional series on tackling teacher shortages include “US teacher shortages stem from low unemployment, stiff competition” and “How the 1954 Brown decision still influences today’s teaching ranks.”