In October, the U.S. Department of Labor approved Wyoming’s statewide teacher apprenticeship program, which aims to put a dent in Wyoming’s teacher shortage crisis.
Now, the state and school districts have to figure out where to get the money to pay for it.
The apprenticeship program is estimated to cost roughly $172,000 per apprentice over three years, according to the Wyoming Department of Education.
The program is meant to lower financial barriers for those who wish to get into teaching. Its goal is to train people to become teachers in their own communities without putting them in debt.
The idea is based on an existing statewide program in Tennessee. In 2019, the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System in Tennessee partnered with Austin Peay State University’s Teacher Residency Program and established a teacher apprenticeship program. In January, the program in Clarksville-Montgomery became the first registered teaching apprenticeship in the country.
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Tennessee is using the apprenticeship model in Clarksville-Montgomery to develop other similar programs across the state, with more than 60 districts across the state launching similar apprenticeship programs that they’ve built through what’s called the Grow Your Own initiative. Those apprenticeships, however, aren’t registered like the one in Clarksville-Montgomery.
The Wyoming Department of Education announced in July that three school districts — Fremont #24, Teton #1 and Laramie #1 — had been chosen to participate in a pilot teacher apprenticeship program. State Director of Digital Learning and Innovation Laurel Ballard said these districts have a collective need for roughly 50 apprentices.
The pilot is meant to act as a model for a statewide rollout of teacher apprenticeship programs in 2024. In October, the Wyoming Department of Education said that it will “begin conversations with interested school districts” around the state in fall 2023 for apprentices that will be applying for the 2024 school year.
The Wyoming Department of Education estimates that the program will cost roughly $57,000 per apprentice for the first and second year, and roughly $58,000 the third year. The cost estimates are based on numbers from Tennessee.
The Wyoming Department of Education proposed that school districts could apply for four-year grants to cover the initial costs of these apprenticeship programs. Those grants would cover 100% of the program costs in the first…
Read More: Education department proposes model for funding teacher apprenticeships