How Governor Youngkin’s Future Educator Academy will create a pipeline for teachers.
To address Virginia’s teacher shortage, Governor Glenn Youngkin proposed a solution. Last year, he announced the Future Educators Academy, a lab-school initiative designed to fast-track high schoolers into careers in education. With the dual-enrollment program slated to launch in the 2024-25 school year, proponents say it will help graduate and train a new batch of young educators.
Youngkin’s initiative was in part based on EdPolicy Works findings. The UVA-based research center reported that thousands of teachers were not returning for the fall school term, leaving students, classes, and schools in the lurch, which wasn’t boding well for Virginia’s school system overall.
New School of Thought
With the number of newly licensed teachers lower than in previous years, according to a Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee study, and student enrollment in education programs in Virginia colleges declining, the figures spoke for themselves: Virginia had a teacher shortage problem. Experts say the Commonwealth’s educational challenges are in part due to the aftereffects of widespread lockdowns, a pivot to virtual learning, teacher burnout, and more.
How to fill those vacancies and create a teacher pipeline?
Youngkin’s administration decided to look to the future: high schoolers.
In 2022, the General Assembly approved $100 million to go toward lab school initiatives. Using these dollars, 15 schools, including Germanna Community College, Piedmont Community College, and Central Virginia Community College, were awarded funds to “stimulate the development of innovative education programs for preschool through grade 12 students.” Some of the schools have multiple locations, which amplifies the program’s reach. Germanna, for example, has campuses in Locust Grove, Stafford, Fredericksburg, and Culpeper.
At Laurel Ridge Community College—with its multiple locations in Middletown, Warrenton, and Luray—and Germanna, a two-year program for 11th and 12th graders at area county public high schools looks like the Future Educators Academy (FEA) lab school. Students can earn up to two years of credits toward a degree in K-12 education, while still enrolled in high school.
Populating the Pipeline
Students interested in becoming elementary and special education teachers can apply for admission to FEA, explains Germanna’s Taylor Landrie, special assistant to the president for strategic initiatives, as long as they meet dual enrollment eligibility. “If there are more applicants than seats available, the students will be selected by lottery,” she says. The idea is to create a more inclusive future teacher cohort—or group—a requirement for all lab schools. Once accepted, FEA
students will attend classes at the Daniel Technology Center in Culpeper for half days, Monday through Thursday, and complete their associate degree concurrent with their high school diploma. Every Friday, FEA students will have hands-on learning rotations to gain teaching experience in the classroom, designed for them to complete practicum hours.
But perhaps the best part about the FEA programis that it guarantees admission into James Madison University’s College of Education and the University of Mary Washington’s College of Education. Not only do participants leave high school with an AA degree, but they also have an automatic acceptance to college.
“They’ll be able to graduate with their degree from JMU when they’re in their early twenties,” says Kim Blosser, Laurel Ridge school president. Even better? “Once they graduate, they’ll return to their home county to teach.” Meaning communities will have a guaranteed batch of fresh educators within four years to help fill the teacher shortage gap. How long they’re required to stay in their home school district remains to be seen, but Dr. Andrew R. Armstrong, assistant superintendent of strategic innovation for the Virginia Department of Education, says, “A two year commitment is encouraged.”
“We cap each cohort at 24 students, but we’ll be running concurrent cohorts at Laurel Ridge and Germanna by year two and may have the capacity to launch two cohorts of juniors at each site in the future if there’s a strong demand,” says Landrie, who adds that enrollment is anticipated to grow each year, with one group in year one, two groups in year two, three in year two (juniors and seniors at Germanna; juniors at Laurel Ridge), and four in year three. By year four, she says, there may be potential to expand to two groups at both locations.
“This is a careful approach,” Armstrong says. Designed to “ensure strong retention as the lab school evolves and builds relationships with their students in its rollout.”
With any luck, the program could be duplicated statewide.
Testing the Limits
While FEA is a first for the state of Virginia, the lab school will blend the well tested dual-enrollment path schools in Virginia that have been operating for years, while blending in new initiatives to accelerate the pathway to employment for future teachers. Blosser is confident that while this first year might require tweaks to the program, the concept is primed for success.
“In all my years in community college education, so many students are undecided majors,” says Blosser. “But what I have found is that there are two areas where students seem to be sure about what they want to do and that’s nursing and elementary education.”
Will her anecdotal data apply to students as young as 16 and 17? Blosser thinks so and is especially optimistic about underserved populations.
“In Winchester Public Schools, 77 percent of students receive free and reduced lunch. I know there are individuals who want to be teachers who think they can’t afford it,” Blosser says. While specifics regarding scholarship money toward the university costs have not been announced, Armstrong says the cost-benefit of earning an AA alone is substantial. “The savings realized through dual enrollment degree completion during the FEA experience will translate to significant savings at the bachelor’s destination,” Armstrong says.
Blosser is eager to see FEA in action. “This gives our underserved students a path to teaching and with a guaranteed job. If you start in 11th grade, you have a guaranteed job,” she says. “For many of these students, this is something they never believed they could do.”
