Johanna O’Callaghan, a student teacher at Benton High School, speaks last week at the school where she helps lead a class while studying at Missouri Western State University. She is currently unpaid, but could qualify for a new SJSD grant.
Shelby Myers, a kindergarten teacher at Coleman Elementary, speaks last week at her school. She graduated from Missouri Western State University after a time of unpaid work as a student teacher, a key part of earning her degree.
Johanna O’Callaghan, a student teacher at Benton High School, speaks last week at the school where she helps lead a class while studying at Missouri Western State University. She is currently unpaid, but could qualify for a new SJSD grant.
Marcus Clem | News-Press NOW
Shelby Myers, a kindergarten teacher at Coleman Elementary, speaks last week at her school. She graduated from Missouri Western State University after a time of unpaid work as a student teacher, a key part of earning her degree.
A grant program will change a longstanding system akin to unpaid internships for apprentice educators in the St. Joseph School District.
In the past, districts gain the labor of a student teacher in exchange for practical learning and experience in the classroom.
The student also gets time to come to a firm decision as to whether or not they want to work for that district after graduation. Amid persistently strong competition for new educators, the trend is changing, and the St. Joseph School District’s response to that is worth up to $3,000 for each case. Johanna O’Callaghan says it’s not a moment too soon.
“I do give student teaching my all,” said O’Callaghan, who is working at Benton High School as a student teacher. “But I think that if I had some type of reimbursement that I could give even more.”
Student teachers will qualify for an initial $1,000 grant when they agree to come work in a St. Joseph public classroom. They receive an additional $1,000 once they have completed the term they agreed to work for, usually their last college semester before they earn a degree and go to work full time. Finally, having passed the previous two steps, they can earn $1,000 more as a contract signing bonus with the St. Joseph School District. That’s in addition to their other pay and benefits. The minimum salary at present is $37,500 per year.
O’Callaghan, who will graduate from Missouri Western State University in May, said every dollar counts. Every student teacher she has ever known of must work an evening job to make ends meet while they are student teaching. The ability to set that requirement aside would be a tremendous boost, she said.
“I am so supported here,” O’Callaghan said. “I was not expecting to have this much support, but I know it’s not the same for all student teachers.”
Shelby Myers works as a kindergarten teacher at Coleman Elementary, having chosen the SJSD as a natural place to do her student teaching while enrolled at Missouri Western. She will not qualify for the $3,000, as she is already a full-timer with the district. But she endorses the idea, because, she said, it’s not really a matter of rewarding people for their work. It’s about enabling them to stop working elsewhere when they’re supposed to be learning how best to prepare each day for their students.
“When you are student teaching, you prep for conferences, you plan outside of classroom hours, you plan during hours. You go to after-school events,” Myers said. “I mean, you are invested. We spend just as much time inside and outside of the classroom as the general education teacher.”
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