U of A program gets unorthodox teacher hopefuls into classrooms

Karina Guevara is the embodiment of the mantra “born to teach.”

Elementary school, she said, was “the best years of my life. There were amazing teachers.” Among them was Guevara’s mother.

“They were all very inspirational, very passionate about what they were doing. That has definitely inspired me to want to become a teacher and to finally pursue it.”

Guevara didn’t take a traditional route. She started at a community college, then enrolled at the University of Arizona, but not with the goal of becoming a teacher.

“I was actually told not to be a teacher,” Guevara said. “I had people influencing me telling me to find something else but because of the pay.”

After deciding the route she was taking wasn’t for her, Guevara left school and had her son.

It seemed Guevara’s dream of teaching had slipped away, until January 2020 — the inaugural cohort of UA’s Pathways to Teaching program, a fast-track way for those who want to teach but might not otherwise have the resources. The 17-month program entails 60 hours of coursework, plus team and solo teaching directly in the classroom.

Upon completion, students earn a bachelor of arts in education, majoring in elementary education with an ESL endorsement.

Guevara has taught third grade at Los Niños Elementary, in the Sunnyside Unified School District, as a certified teacher for three years.

Ximena Mata is well on her way to completing the program. She is working in the classroom with a mentor teacher and partner at a Sunnyside elementary school. After she earns her degree and teaching certificate, Mata has an opportunity to teach at Liberty Elementary.

Sunnyside was the first school district to seek educators through Pathways to Teaching. Now, the partnering institutions include Sunnyside, Tucson Unified School District, Altar Valley School District, Nogales Unified School District, Santa Cruz Valley Unified School District #35, Douglas Unified School District, Sierra Vista Unified School District, Casa Grande Elementary School District, Oracle School District, Mammoth-San Manuel Unified School District and Litchfield Elementary School District.

The partnerships are made possible through intergovernmental agreements.

Participating districts are often part of the process from the get-go, helping identify potential teachers within their own school communities, said Marcy Wood, the co-director for the Pathways to Teaching Program.

“School districts have people that they’re connected to, that are sometimes teaching assistants or paraprofessionals … sometimes bus drivers, sometimes their data entry clerks, a lot of times their parents or volunteers. They’re like, ‘you would be a really great classroom teacher, and we’re desperate for teachers. Come be a teacher for us.’”

“That funding is so critical,” Wood said. “This is not a grant funded program — this is not a program that is going to go away when some grant expires.”

The program applies financial aid in the form of scholarships and Pell grants. Arizona Teacher Academy funding is applied to the balance.

In a roundabout way, the hiring district pays the stipend, Wood explained.

“When our folks take over as teacher of record and classroom, then we bill the district for what it would cost them to have a long-term sub in that classroom. In essence, we’re filling a classroom that would otherwise be filled by a substitute teacher. Rather than paying for that substitute teacher, they pay us. And then we use that money to pay the $1,000 stipend for a teacher.”

Matching Pathways graduates with the right district and the right school can make a big difference, said Maria Orozco, the co-director for the Pathways to Teaching Program.

“We don’t have concrete data in terms to speak in the form of research and data to support ballistically. However, we have noticed that our teacher candidates immediately build relationships with the students, with the families, coming from the same community, knowing the culture of the community,” she said.

That could be particularly impactful in rural areas, where both recruitment and retention can be a challenge, Wood said.

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“If these newly-recruited teachers don’t have passion and connections in these rural spaces, they sometimes elect not to stay,” Wood said. “As a result, you have someone who comes in, and they might teach for a year or two or three. Unless they can find something about that community that meets their needs, as a whole, full person, then it’s hard to stay in that space.”

But not everyone can get to Tucson, Wood added.

“I’ve always thought that there was a need for folks who couldn’t come to the university to have a way to become a teacher. The University of Arizona is a land grant institution; this is a critical part of our mission is to support communities, and bringing what the university does into communities.”

The program has had 128 students so far, with a 100% completion rate, Orozco said.

Cohort sizes are kept small.

“We keep them small for the purpose of students get to know their instructors, but they also build relationships within the group,” Orozco said. “That becomes another level of support for one another as they move through in a cohort together from start to finish.”

The Pathways to Teaching Class of 2024-’25 numbers just under 40.

The effectiveness of Pathways to Teaching graduates hasn’t been established statistically, Wood said.

“This is a space we’re eager to get into. We have anecdotal evidence, but it isn’t a space where we’ve collected data, in part because it’s really, really hard. This is one of the quandaries of education: How do you collect data around teaching effectiveness? It’s a huge bugaboo, because there’s so many factors involved.”

Orozco said anecdotal evidence is encouraging.

“The stories I’ve collected and have heard is that our Pathways teacher candidates do not seem to practice like novice teachers. You would think that they have already been teaching three to five years. As a result, the students’ test scores that they do quarterly are also reflected in students’ preparation, as they’re working towards learning but also preparing them for (Arizona Department of Education) testing that happens this month of April.”

And, Orozco said, the faces inside and outside of the classroom are telling. “The students look happy. The parents are happy and excited about having our teacher candidates.”

District hiring professionals are happy, too, including Monica Sanchez, director of TUSD’s diversity, recruitment and inclusion programs.

“The beauty of this program is that you start to build the relationships, you get connected with the teachers and the community that you’re working in. They get to know the culture of the community,” Sanchez said. “All three of the teacher candidates that are graduating in May are staying with (TUSD).”

Seven students have been placed into TUSD schools for this coming school year, Sanchez added. “I believe we have 14 that are looking at being interviewed for the next cohort.”

“It’s not us,” Wood said. “We’re not growing our own teachers. We’re supporting the districts, and growing people to be the teachers that are going to be the best teachers for that district in that community and those children. “

Program students — as well as leadership — are close-knit, Mata said.

“It’s very supportive in many aspects — the professors, the advising team … everything. It has been such a great program and I have received a lot of support,” she said.

“We’re all here for the same reason,” Guevara said. “We have the same ‘why.’ It’s really special to talk with others who have that same passion … to know that we’re all on the same boat and learning from each other.

“Being a teacher can take a load of your emotion, your mental health. To know that we’re all here for each other is very validating — very much needed — so that we can grow together.”