Oregon Grow Your Own Programs

In this episode we here from Dr. Kevin Spooner, Associate Dean of Education at Warner Pacific University, Tanya Mead, Chair of the Education Department at Portland Community College, Uma Joshi-Garcia from the Multnomah Service District Grow Your Own Program, and Andreina Velasco a Grow Your Own Pathway Navigator from the David Douglas School District. Listen as this collaborative team discusses the value of Grow Your Own programs for teacher candidates and how the college and university work to ensure teacher candidates can be successful. They discuss how being navigators is so much more than simply mentoring students on financial, admissions, and course decisions, but also incorporates seeing to their emotional well-being so that the teacher candidates can feel safe and confident. In particular, they highlight that the retention rate in GYO programs is between 85-90%.In addition to being able to positively affect the diversity of the teaching profession, they are advocating for diversifying the teacher preparation workforce by incorporating more teachers of color, more teachers who've recently been in the classroom, and more teachers who've gone through alternative or non-traditional teacher preparation programs.