In the ongoing quest to fill teacher vacancies, UNC Charlotte has started a new scholarship program for education majors who agree to teach in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools after graduation.
It’s the latest twist in a partnership between the university and the school district to develop sorely-needed new teachers, at a time when North Carolina officials warn that the supply isn’t keeping up with departures.
In 2017, CMS opened Charlotte Teacher Early College High School on the UNC Charlotte campus. It’s part of a trend toward college-based high schools that help students earn tuition-free credit. The state has 134 such schools, but CTEC is the only one specifically designed to prepare educators.
But it turns out that signing up for CTEC doesn’t necessarily mean teens are committed to teaching. Students make their choices while they’re still in middle school. Some withdrew during high school, while others just decided to use their college credits for other majors. CTEC has had two graduating classes, starting in 2022, and Principal Will Leach says only about one-quarter of them are currently enrolled in colleges of education.
Nineteen-year-old Fiona Ganchenko is one of them.
“It was a little bit discouraging seeing all of us taking the same classes and I’m building my passion for this teaching profession and it’s kind of exploding within me. Whereas the people around me are kind of dulling it down, and they’re kind of ‘Oh yeah, this isn’t for me,’ ” she said.
She graduated from Charlotte Teachers Early College High School this spring. As salutatorian, she made a speech about all the things that turn young people away from the profession.
“We come in as a teacher with very low support. We come in with very low pay. It’s a dangerous profession. Nowadays we’re seeing more and more school shootings. We’re seeing more and more lockdowns. Why wouldn’t you avoid it?” she said last week, recalling her themes.
The kicker, though, was that Ganchenko’s passion for teaching overrode her fears. She moved immediately into UNC Charlotte’s Cato College of Education. With the tuition-free credits she earned in high school, she expects to graduate in the spring of 2025. She’s already working with second-graders at Providence Spring Elementary — and loving it. Her goal is to replicate what she remembers about her best teachers in CMS.
“They were the ones who were always jumping around in the classroom. We weren’t sitting around taking tests or whatever. So I want to be that teacher,” Gachenko said.
A new incentive
Malcolm Butler, dean of UNC Charlotte’s education school, says the scholarships that were awarded this fall arose from conversations between him, CMS and members of the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council, which has been sending executives to work for CMS. They wanted to find ways to encourage students to enter the profession.
“We landed on this idea that if we could provide some of our students $10,000 a year and give them that money for three years, we would be almost guaranteeing that they would finish their bachelor’s degree debt-free,” Butler said.
That’s enough to cover in-state tuition and fees, with some money left to help with licensure exams and other costs.
The Barnhill Foundation agreed to provide $90,000 for three students for three years. CMS agreed to guarantee teaching jobs after graduation. And the first three recipients — Ganchenko, Monet Evans and Cing Tian Kim — have agreed to teach in CMS for at least three years.
All three grew up in CMS schools. All share a passion for teaching … and say others tried to steer them away.
A model for Burmese students
Kim arrived in Charlotte as a 6-year-old refugee from Burma, speaking no English when she entered kindergarten at Albemarle Road Elementary School. She says her family really wanted her to choose a different field of study: “Doctor, lawyer … a job that got paid more.”
But Kim enrolled with the first group of students at CTEC. She graduated in 2022 and expects to earn her bachelor’s degree in education this fall. She’s now 21 and doing her clinical work back at Albemarle Road Elementary.
Kim says she never had an Asian teacher.
“That’s also part of the reason why I want to become a teacher,” she said. “Because I want to set an example for the younger kids.”
Kim says the Barnhill scholarship allows her the financial freedom to start that work early.
“This summer I started a program called Little Minds Move Mountains, which is a summer tutoring program focused on my Burmese community,” she said.
Staying on the teaching track
CTEC currently has about 200 high school students on campus, with applications open for the coming school year. Principal Leach has said some students decide the program isn’t right for them and switch to other high schools, while others graduate but use their credits to enroll in college programs that are not related to education.
Out of 50 to 60 CTEC graduates, only about 15 are enrolled in colleges of education. “They’re graduating,” Leach said, “but not choosing to go into education.” He said he thinks the Barnhill scholarships could make a difference.
CMS employs almost 9,000 teachers and needs to replace about 1,000 of them each year. So the Barnhill scholarship program won’t come close to meeting the district’s need for new teachers. But it will ensure that CMS gets first crack at a few young people who would likely be a catch for any district.
“I remember being like 6 and teaching to an imaginary classroom, and having my whiteboard and talking to imaginary students,” says 19-year-old Monet Evans, the third Barnhill scholar. “So I already knew what I wanted to do, regardless of the pay, regardless of what’s in the news.”
She was on Hopewell High’s cheer team while taking on college-level work at CTEC, and she says the Barnhill is her fifth scholarship. She’s now working with fourth-graders at Elizabeth Traditional Elementary School and learning that being a teacher is not just about preparing and presenting lessons.
“The reality is you’re going to have a student that is constantly out of their seat. You’re going to have a student that asks to go to the bathroom 100 times a day when they don’t have to,” Evans said, laughing. “You have a student that’s going to be ‘But why? But why? But why? But why?’ ”
Evans says she expects to struggle a bit with classroom management in her first real job. But she’s undeterred. “Seeing the reality of it really made me say this is what I want to do,” she said. “There is no doubt in my mind.”
In a teaching crisis
North Carolina officials have warned that the number of students enrolling in teacher preparation programs is falling, and the shortage could hit schools across the state especially hard in the coming year. Vacancies are on the rise, according to a February report to the state Board of Education.
Meanwhile, 2022 enrollment in teacher colleges plunged, according to the state’s director of educator preparation. And about 40% of those who enroll either leave the program or abandon the profession within the first year, that same report indicated.
Leach, the CTEC principal, worries about all of that: “The message has got to be that we’re in a teacher crisis.” He says there’s no simple solution, and it’s not unique to CMS.
Malcolm Butler, the Cato College dean, says he knows the scholarships are a drop in the bucket. But he hopes these first three will succeed and help him get money to expand the program.
“We know that every time we’re able to place a high-quality teacher in a classroom with students, we’re moving the needle a little bit,” he said.
