"Georgia Responds" Offers Professionals Training for New Careers

Colleges of education at 15 Georgia public universities are collaborating on a fast-track teacher training program which will offer professionals who have lost jobs in the economic downturn new careers as teachers in Georgia’s schools.

Education deans of the University System campuses met in the Capitol in Atlanta at 11 a.m. Dec. 11 to announce plans for Georgia Responds: Creating Teaching Opportunities.

The program creates a bridge between two statewide needs – the severe shortage of qualified teachers to fill thousands of vacancies in Georgia classrooms and the swelling pool of unemployed professionals displaced by the down-sized job market in other sectors. Georgia Responds is similar to the state’s Alternative Teacher Certification Program, which offers college graduates with significant work experience in another field the opportunity to prepare for a teaching career.

Georgia public schools hired 12,000 teachers this year, but the state’s universities graduated only 3,500, with a projected need for 18,500 more teachers by 2009.

“It was initiated by deans in the colleges of education across the state to help people displaced by the tragedies of September 11,” said Dr. Robert Freeman, dean of education at Augusta State University.

“It’s not a short-cut to becoming a teacher, just an alternative way,” he said. “There are a lot of people with college degrees, good work records, and good communication skills, who through no fault of their own are out of a job."

“We want to see if we can interest them into considering to be a teacher,” Dr. Freeman said. “But the idea that they can go a few weeks during the summer and become a teacher is not true.”

Candidates would still have to meet certain qualifications and pass the standardized literacy tests other teachers had to pass, as well as go through a summer training course and be an intern for up to two years. During that time they would be evaluated and mentored by fellow teachers, he said.

The offer also extends to former teachers and others whose certificates have lapsed or expired.

Georgia Responds will carry the full Board of Regents’ Educator Preparation Guarantee and will operate with cross-university transfer and flexibility and extensive collaboration among the University System colleges of education in offering course work in the various teaching certification areas.

A Georgia Responds website is on-line with information on the program and links to the participating institutions at www.gcsu.edu/georgiaresponds.

The program opens in January for individuals with lapsed teaching certificates and no later than Summer 2002 for applicants with a bachelor's or higher degree seeking first-time certification.
Participants will be eligible for full employment under an intern certificate in August 2002, and those who complete the program can obtain a renewable teaching certificate from the Georgia Professional Standards Commission.