The Northside Independent School District is welcoming its largest class of new teachers in a decade this week with a new teacher academy two weeks shy of the new school year. The class of more than 800 comprises returning retirees, recent college graduates, experienced teachers and career switchers who received alternative certification.
Shana Hansen, 58, is returning to the classroom for the first time in over two decades. After transitioning from teaching to work as a campus and district administrator for many years, she retired in 2019 to oversee a small church school before it closed due to the pandemic.
“So there I was then, in the spring of 2021, and I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do because I was still very young. I was in my mid-50s,” she said. “So I tutored for a couple of years in Northside at a school and I loved it.”
The thrill of the classroom and working with teachers to help kids was tempered by the learning loss she could see in the first classes back following pandemic school closures. But she rose to the challenge and applied for a teaching position, receiving an offer less than a day later.
Hansen noted that this year’s fourth-grade class is the same kindergarten class sent home during spring break in 2020, not to return until at least a year later. The impact on their education is still seen to this day, she said.
“That’s what we’re going to contend with,” she said. “What we are going to do is help these kiddos catch up.”
The new teacher academy is a long-standing tradition for Northside, with several iterations over the years. Hansen said the program has grown and become more helpful, with engaging content teachers can use in the classrooms and modules on topics like social-emotional learning. Teachers learn about district expectations and policies, explore campuses and drill into the first several weeks of curriculum.
Alternative certifications
Another change to the academy in recent years is the growing number of teachers coming into the district from other careers or programs with alternative certifications for teaching. Those programs, some of which have come under scrutiny in recent years, vary in the requirements and standards they operate under compared to traditional teacher certification programs.
One such newcomer is Amy Jensen, who moved to Texas from the Pacific Northwest just over two years ago and spent much of the last decade as a stay-at-home mom.
“Once I moved here, I just decided that it was time; my kids are all in high school and it was time to finish my bachelor’s degree and get my alternative certification and become a teacher,” she said. “My biggest goal in life is to make a difference, and I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. But I put that on pause to raise my family in the way that I felt like I needed to.”
Before becoming a teacher, Jensen was hired as a secretary in the Professional Development Department at Northside ISD, where she moved on the advice of a real estate agent. One of the first events she helped with, weeks after being hired, was the new teacher academy.
While working at the district as a secretary, Jensen attended college and received her alternative certification through Teachworthy, a self-paced online teacher certification program. She called Monday’s first day of training a full-circle event.
Natalie Gray, the director of professional learning for the district, said alternative programs are growing in popularity amid a teacher shortage, with fewer college students graduating with educator certifications and current educators leaving the field.
“That’s just kind of where we are right now as a profession,” she said. “We have fewer people who are going in and majoring in education, their freshman, sophomore year of college, and more that are in their second career who say, ‘You know what, I kind of did this for a while or that for a while, but I’m not feeling fulfilled.'”
Those teachers, Gray said, have the added benefit of bringing more life experience to the job.
‘A certain amount of self-sacrifice’
According to an unofficial count of attendees shared with the San Antonio Report, only about 40% of first-year educators this year came from traditional programs.
One of those was Benjamin Gostkowski, 24, who graduated from the University of North Texas recently with a degree in music education.
“I always wanted something that was going to be a service of some kind,” he said. “I was thinking about the medical field or something like that and then I realized at some point that, you know, I wanted to be a teacher and that music was the medium through which I could be my best teacher.”
Gostkowski has already been working with the band at Clark High School during its annual band camp and will teach at Clark along with giving instruction in percussion at Robinson and Hobby Middle schools.
All 830 new teachers are starting at or transitioning into Northside ISD amid a chaotic time in the education sector. Recent surveys have found that many educators are considering leaving the profession, and schools have become the focus of a wide range of local, state and national political squabbles.
Pay and investment in education have also remained low in the state, frustrating many.
For now, Jensen, who will be teaching aquatic sciences at Holmes High School, said she feels positive and doesn’t think the outside disruptions will impact her classroom in her first year.
Gostkowski credits the recent exodus, exacerbated by the pressures surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, with his ability to work for a coveted district right out of college.
At the same time, he is mindful of the toll the job could take.
“I think … teaching or just being of service in any way requires a certain amount of self-sacrifice,” he said. “I think you need to be aware of that, and you need to balance that between what your goals are as an educator and as a professional and what your goals are [personally].”
“I’m just trying to keep my eyes on the future and where I want to be and what I want to do and not let things cloud my confidence,” he added.
The first day of school for Northside ISD is on Aug. 28.
