The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) has awarded a $230K teacher capacity grant to the UC Santa Barbara Gevirtz School and the Santa Barbara County Education Office (SBCEO). The UCSB Teacher Education Program (TEP) runs a high quality, teacher residency program which gives teacher candidates the opportunity to spend an entire year in our local schools learning to teach. The ultimate goal of this project is to increase the capacity of UCSB's program to enroll future special education teachers as well as teachers who will receive a Bilingual Authorization in Spanish, both of which are high need areas in Santa Barbara County.
To accomplish this goal, UCSB will engage in program development and enhancement to integrate these pathways into the existing TEP. Specifically, the Gevirtz School will use the funds to hire a half-time program coordinator to develop an integrated Dual Special Education and Bilingual Authorization. Additionally, UCSB will work on recruiting a diverse group of mentor teachers that better represent the needs of preservice teachers in the new pathways. UCSB will use their existing Advisory Board, as well as a newly developed Advisory Board, to help identify experienced mentor teachers that reflect the ethnic diversity of k-12 students in Santa Barbara county as well as California.
The grant was written by a team including Director of TEP Tory Harvey, Credential Analyst Katie Tucciarone, Associate Teaching Professor and Mild/Moderate Program Coordinator Amber Moran of the Gevirtz School, and Tom Heiduk, Manager of Credentials Services for SBCEO and a member of the TEP Advisory Board.
Through this collaboration with SBCEO, the Gevirtz School hopes to apply for further funding that will provide fellowships for teacher candidates who would like to teach in high need areas. This future funding would pay for the cost of teacher candidates’ tuition during their time in the program, thereby reducing their student debt burden upon entering such an important field.