Center Valley, PA -
Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) Executive Deputy Secretary Angela Fitterer and Dr. Carissa Pokorny-Golden, director of PDE’s Bureau of School Leadership and Teacher Quality today visited DeSales University in Center Valley. During the visit, DeSales University staff facilitated a discussion about the college’s education programs and how it plans to use more than $183,000 in grant funding from PDE to prepare future educators and provide for ongoing professional development.
“In order to bolster our educator workforce strategy, we must create the conditions for teachers and school leaders to learn, grow, and thrive in their chosen career,” said Executive Deputy Secretary Fitterer. “Governor Josh Shapiro is committed to improving Pennsylvania’s educator pipeline and we are proud to work with colleges and universities throughout the Commonwealth to support current and aspiring teachers.”
DeSales is the only institution of higher education in the Lehigh Valley to receive the Teacher Prep to Practice and Aspiring to Educate: STEM/Computer Science grants. The Aspiring to Educate STEM-Computer Science (A2E STEM-CS) grant program uses PAsmart funds to make simultaneous progress to diversify the teacher workforce and increase the number, diversity, and cultural awareness of STEM-CS teachers. The Innovative Teacher Prep 2 Practice grant program provides funding to stimulate the creation of highly cohesive and innovative clinical experiences for teachers that make explicit connections across the three stages of clinical experience: as first-year candidates, during their capstone clinicals, and induction.
The Innovative Teacher Prep 2 Practice grant will allow DeSales’ education department to focus on recruiting new teachers to the workforce at the undergraduate, graduate, and adult studies levels, with an emphasis on attracting candidates from diverse backgrounds. In addition, the college will be able to pay cooperating teachers to have a student teacher in their classrooms for an entire year. The University has partnered with the Bethlehem Area School District to pilot the initiative before rolling it out to other districts.
The Aspiring to Educate: STEM/Computer Science grant will allow DeSales’ education department to look into four areas: Funding scholarships for local teachers to receive their STEM endorsement through DeSales’ STEM endorsement program; using an AP Institute on DeSales’ campus where local teachers can train to teach the AP exam in calculus and computer science. The closest location is currently in Princeton, New Jersey; gaining state approval to offer teachers a secondary certification in computer science for 7th-12th grades. If approved, DeSales would be among a handful of universities in the state to offer such a certification; and providing support and guidance to local schools that participate in the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science’s Science Fair.