BridgeUP program gives districts a chance to 'grow your own' teacher

LeAnn Dupree “always wanted to be a teacher,” but paying for a four-year college degree wasn’t in the cards for her.

So she settled for an associate degree and entered the workforce, working three jobs including as a paraprofessional educator to make ends meet.

She switched from special to early childhood education for the pay raise but still couldn’t afford to return to school to get her teaching degree.

Now, she doesn’t have to.

Through BridgeUP, a partnership among the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, Point Park University and talent development firm BloomBoard, Dupree and others can become special education teachers without paying a cent. Support staff enrolled in the program keep working as they take courses, meaning they won’t forfeit any income, and employers cover the full cost of $16,500.

“I figured I’d give it a try,” Dupree said. “What do I have to lose?”

Dupree works in special education at the Allegheny Intermediate Unit’s Pathfinder School in Bethel Park, caring for eight elementary-age students with various mental and physical disabilities.

She finds the work rewarding, but being a teacher is her goal.

BridgeUP is one of many “grow-your-own” teacher programs cropping up across the country as districts, intermediate units and state education departments grapple with widespread shortages of education professionals. These programs provide paraprofessionals and other support staff with alternative pathways to becoming certified teachers at little or no cost.

“We have to rethink the way that we train educators,” said Bob Scherrer, Allegheny Intermediate Unit executive director. “There aren’t enough people going through the traditional model, so we have to do something different.”

Traditional programs usually involve four years of college, with two years of in-class work before student teaching even begins, according to Shari Payne, acting dean for Point Park’s school of education. In the same time, candidates can complete this residency-style program.

Paraprofessionals enrolled in BridgeUP learn the material through asynchronous online classes, meaning they can take the classes anytime, then collect evidence of what they learned by applying it in their day-to-day work. These documents, videos or other artifacts are submitted through the BloomBoard platform to Point Park professors for evaluation.

They can earn a teaching degree without missing a day of work — or the pay that goes with it.

So far, Dupree has taken two courses through a pilot program at Lake Erie College but will transfer to Point Park in March to join the first class there. Aside from AIU schools, two districts have committed to the session starting this spring. There’s “significant interest for the fall cohort,” said Sarah McCluan, AIU assistant director of marketing and communication.

Dupree soon will be taking classes such as Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports and doing several hours of observations each week outside of her home classroom. She expects to obtain her teaching certification as soon as the 2025-26 school year.

“I probably would have just retired as a paraprofessional and not been super happy with myself for my life choices,” Dupree said. “I wouldn’t have even attempted to go back to school if I didn’t have this opportunity right now.”

Help wanted

Staff shortages in school districts exist across the board, from regular teachers to instructional aides to substitutes. Data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education show new in-state teacher certifications plunged 69% between the 2011-12 and 2021-22 school years, with a marked dip in that final year.

The need for special educators is especially acute, so it “makes sense to go down this road first,” Scherrer said.

Around two-thirds of Pennsylvania school districts can’t find enough special education teachers and staff, according to a report by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association released Feb. 1.

On-the-job elementary education certifications and an accelerated associate degree could be added in the future, according to a news release from Point Park and BloomBoard.

School districts have to balance the costs and benefits of different recruitment and retention strategies, including BridgeUP.

Wilkinsburg School District jumped right in. Superintendent Joe Maluchnik said the district is fully staffed but receives fewer and fewer applications each time a spot opens up.

“I believe it’s going to save us money in the end, between recruiting and retention and so on,” Maluchnik said. “I know what we spend to post on things like Indeed.”

Riverview School District is holding off for now, according to Superintendent Neil English, citing funding concerns. English added that the district is more in need of paraprofessionals than teachers, meaning there’s “no guarantee” that staff who complete BridgeUP will walk into a full-time role with the district.

Allegheny Valley School District spokesperson Jan Zastawniak said “a reliable program of this sort would be a welcome option for districts to utilize.”

At the moment, any school district in Allegheny County could apply to join the BridgeUP program.

According to Payne, the upward mobility offered by the program actually could help get new support staff in the door at a crucial time, rather than thin their ranks.

Chris Lilienthal, a spokesperson with the Pennsylvania State Education Association, agrees. Retaining education professionals at any level should be the top priority, he said.

“I’d be much more concerned about losing paraprofessionals to jobs in other fields altogether than worry about losing them to becoming teachers,” Lilienthal said.

Diversifying staff

After getting approval from the school board, Maluchnik presented the opportunity to Wilkinsburg School District’s paraprofessionals. Besides insuring against future vacancies, BridgeUP could help the district meet its goal of hiring more teachers of color, he said.

Alexandria McGough and Taylor Earle took up the offer.

After taking a temporary role with the district over the summer, McGough joined full time to assist with an emotional support classroom for third through fifth graders. This is her first job in education.

“I really love what I do and just want to be better at it,” McGough said.

She also wants to give students in Wilkinsburg something she never had: a Black teacher.

“A lot of my grade school experience … I didn’t feel as though I really had anyone to talk to or who could understand my experiences,” McGough said. “For me, grade school was a lonely time.”

Sharing a Black identity with many of her students will allow her to better support them and understand “the certain struggles they go through,” McGough said.

For Earle, this investment from the district “shows that they care” about supporting staff.

Both McGough and Earle last attended school about five years ago and said it’ll be an adjustment going back to class, even if it’s in the nontraditional sense.

Since graduating, Earle has worked in a group home setting, as a one-on-one aide for a person with autism and as a paraprofessional for Wilkinsburg School District, starting the same time as McGough.

“I’ve been out of school for a while, so just getting back into the swing of things … (there’s) a lot of balance that I’m going to have to get back,” Earle said.

Beyond Allegheny County

At least 21 states have established apprenticeship programs to make becoming a teacher more affordable for college students or paraprofessionals. Pennsylvania is not among them.

Lawmakers in Harrisburg advanced a bill last May to establish the Grow-Your-Own Educators Grant Program, but it’s been stuck in the state Senate education committee since.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education has taken steps to bolster the educator pipeline, according to spokesperson Taj Magruder, reducing the processing time for teacher certifications from 12 to less than three weeks and announcing grants to help paraprofessionals become special education teachers.

“We believe grow-your-own programs can be a statewide model to expose more young people to the joys of teaching and nurturing our kids,” Magruder said.

If Gov. Josh Shapiro gets his way, additional funding for teacher recruitment will make it into the 2024-25 budget, including $10 million for grow-your-own and apprenticeships programs. Another $5.5 million is proposed for teacher professional development and expanding the department of education’s talent recruitment efforts.

Meanwhile, district-level grow-your-own programs have launched in Lancaster and Philadelphia. Lilienthal said these have shown early promise, allowing districts to retain “caring, qualified people” who wouldn’t have a path to teaching otherwise.

Pittsburgh Public Schools tried something similar in 2020 with its Para2Teacher program but canceled it after the first graduating class because of funding issues. That ran through Point Park and Carlow universities.

Payne, the Point Park dean, is hopeful that BridgeUP will be more enduring. The university brought on additional faculty and staff for the program, and plans to scale up as appropriate, Payne said. The program can accommodate up to 125 students.

“We’d love for the program to get so big that we have to keep adding to our faculty and staff ranks because that means we’ll be doing the hard work of solving the teacher shortage crisis,” Payne said.

Jason Conway, Westmoreland Intermediate Unit executive director, is interested in his unit joining the Allegheny Intermediate Unit’s program, which would allow Westmoreland County school districts to offer the program to their paraprofessionals.

He’s not sure every intermediate unit should create its own such program. In the absence of a statewide program, Conway said, intermediate units teaming up makes the most sense.

“Everyone is trying to create the wheel,” Conway said. “And having a centralized approach would be very helpful.”

Moving up

There are underlying issues that often deter people from associate’s degree-level positions in education.

For example, teacher’s aides in Pennsylvania make an average of about $15 an hour, according to Indeed.com, an online job search site. The Pennsylvania State Education Association advocates for a $20 minimum wage for all support staff.

“Grow-your-own programs are very important … but we also need to make sure that we’re paying paraprofessionals and personal care attendants a livable wage,” Lilienthal said. “We have to have a really multifaceted approach here because there is no silver bullet.”

But, for aspiring teachers, grow-your-own programs could be life-changing. Not only does Dupree want to become a more skilled and better paid education professional — she wants to set an example for her two kids.

“I want to show them that you can set your mind to something and hit your goal,” Dupree said.

Getting to this point hasn’t been easy, she noted.

“You definitely have to have it in your heart to be a paraprofessional,” Dupree said. “Now, I’m sticking it out because I love what I do. And, hopefully, I can become a teacher very soon.”