Education

Jacksonville Teacher Residency Program Completes First Year, Graduates Placed in DCPS Schools

Education, Jacksonville Teacher Residency - -

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Nine residents from the Jacksonville Teacher Residency Program completed their residency year this June and were offered placement in Duval County’s transformation region. The teacher residency program, or JTR, is one of the first QEA investments to be implemented and has yielded positive results both in DCPS schools as well as at the University of North Florida, where residents attend courses in the College of Education and Human Resources.

In the summer of 2014, the first cohort of residents began their journey to becoming effective teachers in science and math by taking master’s level coursework at UNF. Most of their courses were taught jointly by UNF faculty and DCPS teachers, in order to give a blend of theory and practice that research has shown results in high-performing teachers. In August of last year, the residents began to work as interns alongside some of the Duval Transformation Office’s best and brightest teachers. Over the course of the school year, the residents worked in their classrooms perfecting the skills of teaching and classroom management, while also taking classes at UNF learning content and subject-based skills.

To officially culminate the end of their residency and the beginning of their careers as teachers of record, the JTR program staff and DCPS leadership held a “signing day” on May 26. At the signing day event, Dr. Nikolai Vitti, Superintendent, spoke to the new teachers about his own experience as a new teacher and assured them that they were in for the hardest but most rewarding work in the world. Region Superintendent Iranetta Wright, Dean of the UNF College of Education and Human Resources Marsha Lupi and Duval County School Board members Paula Wright and Connie Hall were also in attendance to give words of wisdom and welcome to the group.

“We could not be more proud of this group of individuals. They taught us so much more than we taught them,” said JTR Program Director Chris White from DCPS. Several of the principals of the DTO schools where residents were placed as well as their master teacher mentors joined in the celebration and welcome of their new colleagues in the district.

 

Quality fund aims to ‘transform’ 36 struggling Duval County schools

Education -

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For many years, most of Duval County’s lowest-scoring schools have been the elementary, middle and high schools in the Ribault, Raines, and Jackson high school regions.

Those 36 schools struggled with high teacher turnover, falling enrollment, frustratingly poor report card grades. Their principals often struggled to fill open positions with high-quality teachers.

Now, these schools are being called “transformation” schools.

About 90 percent of the 200 open positions in those schools are filled, many by some of the district’s highest-scoring teachers, Duval Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told parents last week. He expects all the teachers in place by the first day of school, Aug. 18.

11 First Round of 2014 School Grades Out Today

Education -

The Florida Department of Education released 2014 School Grades for elementary and middle schools today.

These are the last grades that will be based on student performance on the FCAT 2.0, with students and teachers fully transitioning to the new Florida Standards (with an affiliated new test) in the 2014-15 school year, as well as a new formula for calculating the grades.