Teacher residents bring quality to Boston schools

Serghino René

Ver-nard Fernandes wanted a career in politics. Or at least, that’s what he thought.

After graduating from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2003 with a degree in political science, he landed a job at a state senator’s office. But it soon became clear that politics wasn’t his calling.

While looking for a new job, a friend referred him to an advertisement posted on the classified website Craigslist.org for the Boston Teacher Residency (BTR) Program. Fernandes says it was one of the best decisions he’s ever made.

“It’s a very thorough program and I’m definitely geared up for my first year teaching in my own classroom,” Fernandes said.

Fernandes is just one of several career changers, recent college graduates and community leaders who have experience working with children and seek teaching as a career. BTR looks for applicants who are knowledgeable in their content area and have shown their respect for and commitment to teaching urban students in Boston.

For Janet Palmer-Owens, principal of the Samuel W. Mason School, Fernandes is a breath of fresh air.

“[Fernandes] is truly a role model and makes us so proud,” said Owens. “He’s always dressed for success. He’s early, prepared and excited.”

Drawn from the medical training model, BTR is a one-year urban teacher preparation and certification program developed to improve instruction in every classroom. During the 13-month program, teacher residents co-teach with a mentor teacher in one of Boston’s public schools four days a week, take coursework facilitated by exceptional teachers and university faculty and receive a $10,000 stipend for expenses during the year.

Teacher residents earn a Massachusetts Initial Teacher License, a master’s degree in education from the University of Massachusetts-Boston and work toward dual licensure in Special Education. There is no tuition cost to graduates who teach in the Boston Public Schools (BPS) for three years. Residents also receive an education award that can be used to cover the cost of their UMass-Boston master’s courses.

“Schools call me all the time and ask me who I have for them,” said Owens. “They want to hire a teacher resident because they know they are going to have all the skills needed to be up and running on the first day.”

The goal of the program is to customize teacher training so there is more control over the quality of the preparation and the selection of applicants. Additionally, the program provides nontraditional candidates with a low-cost and high-quality entry into the profession and establishes a support system for new teachers so they stay teaching in BPS.

“The one thing they drilled us on in class was classroom management,” Fernandez said. “When I came into the program, I was more concerned with teaching the content and not working with the children. When I started assisting in the classroom I quickly realized that room management was just as important, if not more important, as teaching the content. [BTR] gets you ready to be a teacher.”

Each year, BPS receives countless applications. In the past, administrators have seen experienced applicants who entered the system highly motivated but left after a short time. The turnover rate was high, with about 50 percent of new hires leaving the BPS system after two years. That sparked the urgency to start BTR. Effective teaching is the key, says Jesse Solomon, director of BTR.

“The passion and focus of the program is preparing teachers for preparing students. Through [BTR], we can find the people we want, train the way we want and get people who are committed to teaching and the city,” said Solomon. “There is a big need for good teachers, and if college isn’t producing those folks, we have to do it ourselves.”

Since the program’s inception, Solomon says BPS has a 96 percent retention rate. About 50 percent are teachers of color and 50 percent of BPS teachers are teaching math and science at the middle school and high school level. To date, almost 90 BTR grads are teaching in BPS.

Similar programs are now offered in Chicago and Denver, and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has introduced federal legislation that includes funding the expansion of “teacher academies” similar to the residency model.

At the end of the day, all of this effort is aimed at one goal: to prepare and retain the best teachers for Boston’s students.

“I’ve learned so many things through this program,” Fernandes said. “This is not just about teaching for the MCAS. It’s more about learning to teach well.”