This fall, Tri-C student Tierra Morrison will graduate and head off to Central State to prepare for a career in the Cleveland School District.
Tierra Morrison: This is my home. This is my birthplace. This is where I started. And I want to finish up here.
Morrison is being hailed as the first student to take part in a new partnership announced Tuesday between Cleveland schools, Tri-C and Central State. Under the program - called 2+2+2 - students at the John Adams High School in Cleveland may be dual-enrolled at Tri-C, taking classes that count both for college credit and high school graduation. They will then spend two years full time at Tri-C, where they will be dual-enrolled at Central State. Then they spend their last two years earning their bachelor's degree in education at Central State. If all goes to plan, they will return to Cleveland and teach in the city's school district.
Central State president John Garland says the effort should smooth the way for supplying urban schools with more teachers who know what they're getting in to when they arrive.
John Garland: These young people will serve as roll models for what can happen at other urban communities, by creating meaningful pathways for education.
The program will include special preparation for the challenges of urban schools. Discipline and attendance are much bigger problems than in the suburbs. Garland says Central State already has an institute for urban education, making it a natural choice for the partnership.
John Garland: We know how to educate teachers to go back into urban school districts because most of our students are coming from urban school districts.
Tri-C President Jerry Sue Thornton agrees, saying it's not low pay that deters teachers from coming to and staying in the Cleveland schools. The pay, in fact, is better than average for the region.
Jerry Sue Thornton: The issue is survival, and being able to thrive in an urban environment. And for students who have never lived in an urban environment, they simply don't know how to navigate the schools. But if you can get students who graduated from urban environments, they understand it, they can navigate it. They understand the culture.
Cleveland Schools CEO Eugene Sanders sees this program as part of his plan to raise the quality of education in the city. But it's unclear how many jobs will be available in the district once the students graduate. Catalyst Cleveland associate editor Stephanie Klupinski says graduates of a similar urban education program at Cleveland State have found few opportunities in the district. Of 25 graduates two years ago, none has found a job in the city schools.
Stephanie Klupinski: Even though, like with this new program at Tri-C they were specifically trained in urban education, and wanted to teach in the Cleveland schools.
The main reason for the lack of openings is declining enrollment which has led to teacher layoffs instead of hirings. And even if the graduates do land positions in Cleveland, Klupinski says the schools themselves will need to do more to support the new teachers and keep them motivated.
For Tierra Morrison, the student already on this track, she too is hoping she can land a job in two years at a Cleveland high school. She wants to inspire more students to follow her path.
Tierra Morrison: I can direct them towards the way that I went. And, give them a good foundation, and make them aware the knowledge, and I'm pretty sure they'll want to go the way.
Dan Bobkoff, 90.3.