Timoney: How Texas A&M is addressing the teacher shortage

MCALLEN, Texas - The director for undergraduate recruitment for the school of education and human development at Texas A&M University has spoken about his college’s efforts to train more teachers.Paul Timoney was on hand to talk to students thinking of becoming a teacher at an Open House held at A&M’s Higher Education Center in McAllen.“There's a critical need for teachers around the state of Texas and certainly here in the (Rio Grande) Valley. So having a teacher preparation program right here in the Valley is great for students that want to stay local, but also take advantage of Texas A&M,” Timoney told the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service. “We're a Tier One research university. The Wall Street Journal recently named us  the top university in the state of Texas. And so those students get the benefit from all those resources and our first class faculty that we have down here.” Timoney said there are a lot reasons for the shortage of teachers in Texas.“One is clearly retirements post pandemic. The other thing is the state of Texas continues to grow. And that growth is all over the state. And so with all the growth comes building more schools. If you look at any community you'll see there are schools being built every day,” Timoney said.“So, there is a teacher shortage and that's how we're trying to address it, by making sure that we can recruit and bring more students into our program so they can go out and be great teachers for the state of Texas.”Go to www.riograndeguardian.com to read the latest border news stories and watch the latest news videos.