The State Board of Education will consider a proposal today to allow the Douglas County School District to license its own teachers.
The south metro district is asking the state if it can bypass laws that require teachers to be licensed through the Colorado Department of Education so that it can more quickly place talented people in positions that are hard to fill.
That includes teachers of Mandarin Chinese or special education, Superintendent Jim Christensen said.
The proposal, which the district hopes to implement during the 2007-08 school year, includes several components, said Pat McGraw, chief of staff.
A professional-in-residence program would allow working professionals, such as engineers from Lockheed Martin who aren’t licensed to teach, to come into the district and teach students “things that are applicable to engineering” on a part-time basis, McGraw said.
A second component would allow the district to take people who are licensed to teach, but lack approval to teach a particular specialty, and train them to work in hard-to-fill positions, such as in math or a foreign language.
Christensen said the current system for licensing teachers, including alternative licensing programs for nontraditional teachers, is cumbersome for professionals who want to bring real-world skills into the classroom.
“We have qualified teachers ready to work in these classrooms,” he said.
McGraw said the district has not been able to get teaching candidates under the state’s licensing program, but the district has the resources to train its own teachers.
“We have strong programs in place,” he said.
State Education Commissioner William Moloney praised the program as reaching “beyond the boundaries” of education in the U.S.
But Evie Hudak, a member of the state board, said that rather than granting special status to Douglas County, the state should examine its approach to licensing teachers in a way that might benefit all districts in the state that struggle with teacher shortages.
The board will consider whether to grant waivers to the district at its regular meeting at 9 a.m. today at 201 E. Colfax Ave.
Staff writer Karen Rouse can be reached at 303-954-1684 or krouse@denverpost.com.
