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Sharing partnership-focused learning across 12 teacher residency partnership sites during the 2019-2020 school year, Prepared To Teach reports on the development and co-constructed activities facilitated in its National Learning Network. These include highlights in six areas: sustainability, partnership development, program redesign, supporting school improvement, mentor development, and resident learning. doi.org/10.61625/XULY7940

To learn how teacher residencies across California fund their innovative work, the Learning Policy Institute and Prepared To Teach partnered to examine the current state of practice around residency sustainability. California teacher residencies with known financial sustainability efforts leverage local resources to support residents and mentor teachers. These concrete examples of creative residency funding strategies are meant to help California’s new investments in teacher residencies become sustainable over time.

When two people living together both contribute toward rent or pooling property to furnish their shared space, their rent and furnishings become mutual responsibilities with shared benefits. Some benefits might come with some compromises or extra responsibilities, but ultimately both people see long-term savings in return for their partnership together. Districts and preparation programs can take a similar approach to partnerships for residencies. When relationships are based on mutual trust and shared goals, all parties benefit.

This version 1.0 guide is focused on messaging about teacher residencies. It provides recommendations about branding, visual, narratives, and social media.

Recruiting, hiring, and onboarding new teachers is a major expense for districts nationwide. Filling a vacancy in an urban school costs about $20,000—and most districts hire tens, if not hundreds, of new teachers each year. Often, those vacancies are caused by early-career teachers who leave after a year or two. Since residency-trained teachers stay in their positions longer, districts can reduce spending on turnover by hiring from a pipeline of residents. Over time, savings on recruitment and hiring costs can help sustain the residency program and create a self-renewing investment in teachers.

School districts can adjust existing funding streams to support teacher candidates during their residency year. Examples include substitute teaching days for residents, professional development opportunities, and co-teaching alongside mentor teachers.

Programs from across the Prepared To Teach National Learning Network have creative staffing models that directly address staffing and substitute teaching shortages.

Created in response to discussions in New York State, including those held within the P-20 Collaborative and with stakeholders during the six years prior to the creation of this white paper, Prepared To Teach connects the importance of sustainable funding for teacher candidates as the state seeks to address persistent teacher quality, diversity, and turnover challenges. Offering a roadmap to funding candidates in clinical practice alongside an accomplished teacher, this paper offers support for discussions around how to provide the clinically-rich preparation necessary to counteract the impact teacher under-preparation has on systemic inequities.

Preparation program leaders can use these guiding questions to find more ways to reduce the financial burdens of their aspiring teachers, built from affordability lessons from our report, The Affordability Imperative: Creating Equitable Access to Quality Teacher Preparation.

This residency partnership sample MOU can be edited and adapted in ways that best fit local partnerships' needs and goals. The MOU includes collaborative goals and shared responsibilities, followed by specific program and district responsibilities.

Residency programs should explicitly outline expectations for residency programs. Many of these considerations also would be included in formal agreements between individual residents and preparation partnerships, for example, when residents must agree to serve as teachers in a district in exchange for receiving funding during the program. A sample agreement that incorporates these considerations is available below.

This sample Formal Resident Commitment Agreement is a skeleton for partnerships to use and edit in ways that best fit their needs. This formal contract model not only embeds expectations for the residency but also sets terms for residents' receipt of financial supports during the residency, such as agreements to take positions in a district once they have completed the program.

For a comprehensive look at a program budget, this Excel-based tool will estimate five years of costs and potential savings to assist in your immediate and long-term planning. Administrators or program leaders might find this especially helpful for considering shifts in teacher preparation programming.

A key consideration for building a residency partnership is articulating agreements that clarify each party's responsibilities—programs and schools or districts—and foster a shared understanding of the mutual goals and responsibilities the partnership wishes to embrace. Agreements can remain informal or can form the basis for a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). See a sample MOU below.