With an influx of state funds and a laser-like focus on teacher training, community colleges up and down the state are implementing education programs aimed at increasing the number teachers in California.
But no program may be quite as ambitious as Chaffey College's "Gateways to Teaching," which has already enrolled 170 students in its first year and expects to enroll 350 by the end of next year.
Virginia Downie and Bill Purkiss head the Gateways Program.
Even more surprising, the college in Rancho Cucamonga has moved ahead with its "Gateways" program without waiting for coveted money from the state's Community College Teacher and Reading Development Partnership funds that other colleges are using to seed their programs.
Soul-searching process
Instead, Chaffey initiated its project after a soul-searching few years in which the entire faculty, staff and administration engaged in a public dialogue and established a Focus on Learning Task Force to further an atmosphere of teaching and learning on campus. One of the programs to emerge task force was a service learning project that would center around the state's looming teacher shortage.
"We latched onto the teacher shortage and were amazed to discover how serious the problem was in California. The state expects to be short 300,000 teachers by the year 2010. That's just a staggering number," said Virginia Downie, a professor of communication who chaired the task force and is now coordinating the new teacher education program.
Chaffey's Gateway students, clockwise, from back: Karen McGuirk, Ryan Lastra, David Tyra, Angel Richards, Margo Hinchey and Adam Wucherpfennig.
At a local level, on campus, Downie noted, a significant percentage of Chaffey students identified themselves as prospective teachers, however, most of them were not even making it through the system to transfer and complete their studies at a four-year institution. By providing sound class work, real life tutoring experiences in local schools, and ongoing support and mentoring to their college students, the Gateways directors hoped to build a program that would not only enhance the college community but provide better-prepared teachers.
Operating on a shoestring
Operating on a shoestring, the Gateways to Teaching Program has been a labor of love for Downie, who is directing it with just one class of release time a week. Her colleague, Bill Purkiss, another communications professor, has been teaching the education courses and mentoring the students. The two are undaunted by the tasks surrounding the birth of a brand new program.
"With or without support, we're going ahead. It's timely, it's needed and it brings the community together through service learning,"Downie said.
Unlike some programs that try to draft honor students from local high schools, "Gateways to Teaching" recruits all students who have shown an interest in teaching. The students enter the program through two 'gateways": Gateways One students are those who are working on their basic skills to prepare them for Gateways Two. Gateways Two students are those who are already prepared for transfer-level courses."
"Honor students are not the only ones who can make great teachers," Downie said.
Passion required
Purkiss agreed. "If you want to be a teacher, we don't care what your GPA is as long as you have the passion."
Purkiss, knows what he's talking about. He noted that he wasn't an exceptional student when he first entered college, and nearly dropped out in his early years due to his dyslexia. Later, however, he continued his education, earning his doctorate in education from Claremont College. His own experience has made him empathetic to his current students, who see him as a role model.
"People see me and say, 'if he can do it, I can do it," Purkiss explained.
Gateways to Teaching Program has helped a number of students - regardless of their academic standing - to find out whether they have the right stuff for teaching. Some find out they don't.
"We had one student who volunteered in an elementary class tell us, 'This has got to be the worst job there is," Downie said. "We told him it was a good thing to find out now, before he had spent five years acquiring a degree and teaching credential."
Still, Downie and Purkiss maintain that the program will ultimately be successful because of the support and human connections it offers its students. From the first ice- breaker at orientation to the extensive mentoring along the way, the Gateways Program seeks to really show its students the best that education has to offer.
"We simply think students do better when they have those human connections with faculty and staff and each other," Downie said.
The students will also be tracked as they move along through the education process and as they enter teaching careers.
"We're going to study these students until six years after the university. We want to know whether they stay in teaching or not," Downie said.
The students in the program are as varied as any in today's community colleges: older students who are making career changes, single mothers, former high school drop outs, and traditional students out of high school.
"The idea of going back to school scared me," said David Tyra, who at age 49 enrolled in Chaffey after a back injury sidelined him from his job as a sprinkler installer. "No one in my family ever had gone to college. But I found everything I needed in Gateways, from peer contact to resources."
Tutoring success
Tyra has also found success in his tutoring efforts in the local schools, and has helped to turn around students who had never succeeded before. He has received the praises of parents who have singled him out for helping their children.
Another student, Adam Wucherpfennig, a one-time high school drop-out, felt he was able to reach several under-performing high school students by having them use untried math skills to figure out how much money they would make at a hamburger-flipping job. The students realized they should stick with school.
"These kids are just as capable as anyone, but you have to know how to engage them," Wucherpfennig said. "It's easy to work with the top 10 percent of kids, but it's a lot harder to reach some of the rest."
The Gateways students have also found that their paid tutoring experiences in the field bolsters their classroom theory.
"This tutoring program is so good because it gets us into the ranks and allows us to see what really goes on in the classroom - rather than waiting until we've been in college four or five years," said Karen McGuirk, who also pointed out that the cost of taking the course in community college, for $11 a unit was quite a bit less than the nearby state university campus.
Now that the program is off and running, Purkiss and Downie expect to turn it over to other educators who have direct experience in elementary and secondary schools.
"The thing we're committed to it to dream it and to do it, and then let the institution get behind what we're doing," Purkiss said. But both are satisfied that the program has found a home at the college.
