Beginning this fall, the CUA Department of Education, in conjunction with the Archdiocese of Washington, will offer a newly designed Graduate Teacher Certificate Program (GTCP) to help working teachers earn required state credentials.
A non-degree program, the GTCP is designed for teachers in Catholic, private, or D.C. public and charter schools. The course work extends over three semesters and includes mentoring and supervision. Teachers who complete the training will be eligible to apply for licensure from the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education,which has reciprocity in 49 states.
The first offering of GTCP will be for teachers already teaching in Archdiocese of Washington (ADW) schools. Eventually it will be available to teachers in other school districts.
“Historically, state accreditation was not required for diocesan or independent Catholic schools,” said Melissa Mitchell, Education Department Chair and Clinical Assistant Professor. “That has changed. ADW now requires their teachers to be licensed under accreditation.”
Not long after Mitchell became department chair last May, a discussion began with the Archdiocese to establish a partnership. “In early August, the Archdiocese approached me about a teaching licensure program we had offered in the past,” Mitchell recalled. “She said, ‘We currently have teachers in our school system who need licensure and we would like to partner with CUA to launch a program by fall 2024.’
Mitchell jumped at the challenge and with the support of Dean Tom Smith worked hard to relaunch the GTCP program. “We recognized what a wonderful opportunity this is, for both the university and ADW,” Mitchell said.
The first cohort will be limited to 10 ADW middle school teachers. “A limited cohort is what we can handle right now,” said Mitchell. Future programs will be tailored for a wider range of levels. “We are designing a research- based, data-driven program as we collect data from superintendents, principals, teachers, and stakeholders to inform best practices for Catholic teacher formation,” Mitchell said.
GTCP courses will be online and asynchronous to serve as a convenient format for working teachers. The program also will include a stronger Catholic Identity and Catholic Mission, while continuing to offer the rich pedagogy CUA teachers have historically been trained in, said Mitchell. “Even as we embark on our partnerships with ADW to support those teachers and revitalize the Catholic mission, we continue to work with our public and charter school communities. We are designing an interdisciplinary program. For example, one of our Philosophy of Education courses will be taught by Jem Sullivan, a theology professor.”
Mitchell hopes another eventual benefit of the GTPC will be inspiring more CUA education majors to stay in the D.C. area. “Many of our students in the teacher education program come from outside the area and return home to teach in their communities, which is a wonderful strength of our program, to foster CUA teacher formation throughout the country,” Mitchell said. “With this partnership, we have an opportunity to hopefully recruit local students in ADW schools who would like to remain in their local DC communities as teachers after their student teaching internships.”
“The GTPC program is designed to train our teacher candidates in a Catholic mission while maintaining the rich pedagogy focus our programs have maintained for many years,” Mitchell said. “We want to be a model for developing a vibrant Catholic Teacher Formation tradition in which Christ is the center, in which the Logos and that message radiate from our teachers into our classrooms.”