By Carrie Jung, Fronteras Desk
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For Arizonan Aubrey Larson, Friday night plans don’t really change much from week to week.
"Friday night, we kind of make a picnic on the family room floor, we have a movie that comes in from Netflix usually, and eat pizza," she explained. On the docket tonight? "Barbie and the Rockin Royals."
Larson is the mother of three kids. Family is her first priority, she said. But for the last 12 years, she's been slowly working toward her second priority-- becoming a math teacher.
"The challenge standing in the way, was there wasn’t a program here," she said of her glacial progress.
Larson lives in the small town of Thatcher in southeastern Arizona near the New Mexico border-- population 5,023 as of July 2014. The closest universities offering a secondary education degree are at least two hours away.
But now, there may be an option for people like Larson who want to teach but also stay close to home.
A new program from Arizona State University has small, rural towns like Thatcher growing their own teachers. The initiative is part of ASU's Mary Lou Fulton Teacher's College and it trains local would-be teachers for work in their local schools. Specifically, it's geared toward people that have received an associate’s degree in any area and are interested in receiving a secondary education degree in math, English, science or history.
They've set up shop on the Eastern Arizona College campus, and Larson is one of the first enrolled students.
Jackie Hale with ASU's teacher's college said the program is necessary since it's hard to retain qualified teachers who aren't from the area. Though K-12 schools in this area manage to recruit teachers, many don’t stay longer than a few years, she said. And that has a lot to do with the realities of small town living and the culture that comes with it.
"Probably between 10 and 15 percent of teachers currently are from this area," Hale explained. There can be some sticker shock, she said, "If you’ve never experienced small town living and never experienced that you’re going to have to drive three hours for a Target."
Plus, she said, "one of the things that comes into play in this whole valley is it’s strong LDS," or, the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints. Mormon pioneers settled this part of Arizona and the LDS culture is still a strong component of everyday life.
All of this can make it hard for outsiders to adjust, which is why many local school administrators have supported this idea of "grow your own."
ASU plans to expand access to their program over the next few years. In the fall of 2016, a similar program is launching at Arizona Western College in Yuma, and then Central Arizona College in 2017. ASU teacher’s college Assistant Dean Connie Pangrazie says the concept is simple-- more programs in more places, means more teachers.
"If you only have a handful of universities preparing teachers then you have less teachers being prepared," she said.
The initiative is expanding beyond ASU. Here in the Gila Valley, Northern Arizona University offers a similar program for elementary education. And other states like Montana and Indiana are jumping on the bandwagon. That's according to John Hill, the executive director of the National Rural Education Association.
"People that were born and raised in rural areas tend to be more comfortable working in rural schools," he said. "And if [they're] employed in rural schools, they tend to stay there longer."
But Hill added these programs aren’t always a magic fix - "It’s more than just encouraging people to teach, it’s encouraging people to teach in the shortage areas."
Simply put, Hill said fewer people want to become teachers these days, thanks to a number of factors like low pay and limited resources. And that's an issue that will eventually trickle down to school districts everywhere, rural or urban.
As for Thatcher local Aubrey Larson, she’s got a year of student teaching to go before getting her degree.
But she’s already got her dream job lined up as a math teacher at Thatcher High School. "They’re pretty desperate, so I’m lucky," she said.
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