UMW Aims To Address Teacher Shortage Through Stafford Agreement

FREDERICKSBURG, VA — The University of Mary Washington signed an agreement with Germanna Community College and Stafford County Public Schools to make it easier for local students to become educators and help ease the state’s teacher shortage.

A memorandum of understanding, signed in June by UMW President Troy Paino and Germanna President Janet Gullickson, was finalized last week with the signature of Stafford County Schools Superintendent Scott Kizner.

The agreement creates dual enrollment and workforce programs for future teachers, offering programs in education and early childhood education to participants in the state-recognized Stafford Schools’ Teachers for Tomorrow initiative. UMW holds a similar partnership with Spotsylvania County Public Schools.

As a public university, UMW's College of Education has a responsibility to help address the "chronic teacher shortage in our area schools and in Virginia,” UMW College of Education Dean Pete Kelly said Wednesday in a statement.

Under the agreement, students who hope to become teachers can begin preparations while in high school with dual enrollment courses that can be applied toward a Germanna degree and later transferred to UMW, or directly applied at UMW. The program also gives high-school students the opportunity to observe classrooms and obtaining teaching experience before they reach college.

The agreement is one part of UMW’s Pipeline to Promise initiative, aimed at easing future teachers’ transition from high school to higher education through partnerships with graduate programs at schools such as George Mason University. Efforts to develop similar programs with other area high schools is ongoing, UMW said.

In 2019, the Virginia Department of Education approved undergraduate teacher education programs at more than a dozen colleges and universities. Officials said the goal is to streamline requirements and lower the cost of entering the profession.

Teacher shortages in Virginia and across the country are disproportionately felt in special education, math and science, and in bilingual and English-language education.