TSS Makes Paid Residencies a Reality

Texas Strategic Staffing is a 2-year process in which a district and EPP commit to designing and implementing a paid teacher residency program that is sustainably funded by reallocating district resources to compensate teacher residents who take on additional instructional responsibilities in the district while completing a year-long teacher residency program.

Texas Strategic Staffing (TSS) Convening
TCLAS Conference Decision 5

Texas Strategic Staffing
Overview

Short-term Benefits

• Residents fulfill immediate instructional needs in schools as part of their year-long student teaching experience, to include:
• Residents as substitutes
• Residents as para-professionals
• Residents as tutors and enrichment teachers
• Residents and mentor teacher teams:
• Reduce student to teacher ratio
• Increase access to differentiated instruction
• All residents impact student learning acceleration needs while co-teaching
• Reduction of inservice teacher workload through co-teaching and resident support with those additional instructional roles.

Long-term Benefits

• Residents are prepared for the long term to be teachers in their districts:
• A financially possible residency pathway in your district
• Quality preparation of teacher candidates for year 1 readiness 
• Increased retention of new teachers due to quality preparation and connectedness to students and the school community
• Increased retention of your most effective teachers through leadership opportunities in paid mentor teacher roles
• Overall teacher retention contributes to a healthy school community and student learning outcomes.

Teacher Recruitment Support

• Providing supports for paraprofessionals to become certified teachers
• Elevating the perception of the teaching profession through the expansion of high-quality Education and Training (E&T) courses at the high school level
• Reducing/eliminating LEA teacher shortages by hiring, supporting and retaining highly-qualified teachers
• Increasing long term student achievement by filling teacher vacancies and retaining HQ teachers

Teacher Residency Support

• Assisting LEAs with providing paid teacher residencies and effective cooperating teachers to mentor each resident
• Addressing the diversity needs of the LEAs with solutions that mirror the student demographics
• Increasing the access points to HQ teacher candidates through EPP partnerships with strong teacher residency programs. 
• Reducing LEA hiring and onboarding costs using innovative reallocation/reinvestment strategies
• Increasing long term student achievement by filling teacher vacancies and retaining HQ teachers

Other New Hires Support

• Reducing/eliminating LEA teacher shortages by supporting and retaining highly-qualified teachers long term
• Provide new hire/mentor teacher training & support