Dr. Bev Bell (PI) and Sandra Sarucia Awarded Diversifying Educator Workforce Grant

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Dr. Bev Bell (PI) and Sandra Sarucia were awarded a $354,000 Diversifying Educator Workforce grant through Governor Healy’s office and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The focus of this grant is to provide needed support to educators in Springfield, Holyoke, and Lawrence Public Schools to prepare for their Massachusetts Test for Educator Licensure (MTEL) and support Cohort 1 of the Teacher Quality Partnership ECE paraprofessional licensure program. The grant allows Umass-Amherst College of Education to collaborate with various partners and share these resources widely with district partners and other educator preparation programs in the area.

Supported by this grant, program manager Sandra Sarucia collaborated with Professor Stacy Szczesiul (UMass-Lowell), Lynne-Ellen Garcia (Lawrence Public Schools), Valerie Williams and Roberto Ortiz (Springfield Public Schools), Christie Elman (Holyoke Public Schools), and colleagues at Westfield University and Springfield College, to identify, recruit and facilitate multiple MTEL workshops during September. 

Over 150 participants engaged in the weekend workshops and will receive a voucher to cover the cost of their MTEL. 83% of participants rated the workshops as excellent and 92% of participants left the workshops feeling confident or somewhat confident about taking the MTEL. Sixty percent of participants are currently teaching on an emergency license or a waiver and another 13% of participants are working as para-educators. These four workshops will be further developed to create ‘stand-alone’ webinars for future virtual use by licensure students.

Furthermore, the grant provided additional resources for partnership with Danielle Phillips at Paradigm Shift.  Paradigm shift has a cadre of teachers across Western Mass, who will provide 10 hours of individualized support to thirty educators from local schools and UMass-Amherst students, working to pass their respective MTELs. Another 12 individuals will receive support to complete their requirements through the MTEL Flex option. 

Culminating this three-month project, UMass-Amherst College of Education Educator Preparation hosted a day-long in-depth workshop on Culturally and Linguistically Sustaining Teaching (CLST), offered to UMass faculty, program supervisors, and staff as well as to partner educator preparation programs from Westfield State University, Western New England University, and Smith College.