Dream to Teach Strives for New Generation of Minority Teachers
Students posed with certificates following an event that showcased the first year of Dream to Teach.
About a year ago veteran School Board member Connie Boesen approached Scavo teacher Sarai Tillinghast and shared her vision for a seeding program aimed at growing more minority teachers for a “majority minority” school district.
DMPS educates more than 32,000 students. Minority students make up 55% of the district’s enrollment, yet only 6% of DMPS teachers are minorities.
“The shortage of minority teachers is a national issue, it’s not a Des Moines issue alone,” Boesen said at the time. “But with help from the community, we will solve it.”
On Saturday morning Boesen and Tillinghast were at Lincoln High School in the student commons for a reaping of sorts: the first annual student showcase of Dream to Teach, the program that is realizing Boesen’s vision. The crop has broken ground and is reaching for the sky.
D2T was piloted at six locations during the 2014-15 year: Meredith, Weeks and McCombs Middle Schools; Lincoln, North and Scavo High Schools. Collectively those sites generated 68 students and 14 mentors.
Meredith Spanish teacher/D2T mentor Carrie Romo delivered a summary of Year One:
- Weekly site meetings
- Two college visits (Grandview and Iowa State)
- Three workshops
- District central office job shadows
- Scholarship seminar
- Intro to Central Campus programs like the Teacher Academy
- Exposure in news media including Iowa Public Radio, Urban Educator and the Iowa Council of Teachers of Mathematics
Sometimes taking an idea from the drawing board into the field can be disillusioning. Not in this case. Boesen found the right coordinator in Tillinghast whose enthusiasm for D2T is infectious. Presiding over presentations from each of the pilot sites Saturday she couldn’t have been more pleased. Every time she opened her mouth at least two of the words that came out were “thank you.”
“Pretty amazing,” were the first two out of Boesen’s. Just as she had predicted a year ago, the shortage of minority teachers here is a challenge the community has stepped up to address.
One of the students manning the Scavo display at the showcase was Deandre (DJ) Calaway. He’s 20, a reclaimed dropout who came back and is determined now to pay forward the investment others made in him.
“I’m going to make it,” insisted the young man who had stopped going to school altogether while he participated in an optional school activity on a Saturday morning. His grin looked convincing.
The McCombs presentation focused on ELL students in their community who came from Thailand, Mexico and Afghanistan. One of the Afghanis is 14 year-old Sohrab Fnu who came to America and Des Moines about the time D2T was launching. He lives with his parents, six brothers and two sisters. One of his grandfathers was killed by the Taliban. He has come so far in his ELL instruction already that he hopes to be mainstreamed when he starts high school next year at East. His own ambitions are to become a doctor or engineer but they have been fueled by the embrace he received from D2T protégés upon his arrival at McCombs.
“He’s a good kid,” said McCombs PE teacher/D2T mentor Bill Proctor.
They all are. They’ll make good teachers, too. And there are more where they come from.
