Frostburg State University Awarded a Maryland Leads contract

Frostburg State University submitted a proposal to serve as a Maryland Leads Partner under Strategy 1: Grow Your Own Staff and is currently working with Washington and Garrett County Public Schools. The Maryland State Department of Education shared a Notice of Grant Award for $798,540. Washington County will work with Frostburg State University Maryland Accelerates project, which aims to increase the number of teachers and the quality of teaching in high-need and rural communities by offering a master’s degree program individuals can complete in an accelerated 13-month program. The program also funds the student during that year with a living stipend so he or she can dedicate themselves to their studies and eliminate the trade-off between work and study time. The project also helps bridge opportunity and achievement gaps by supporting regional career ladders to improve teacher effectiveness, retention, and career advancement.  The Garrett County Public School Project provides tuition, fees, and books to county employees as they reach their goals of teacher certification.

Under the Grow Your Own Staff strategy, the residency cohort will be made up exclusively of current employees of the LEA, perhaps those currently serving as instructional assistants, to provide an alternative pipeline to teaching certification. Many of these candidates may have aspired to become teachers, but did not have the financial resources, or life events may have been barriers to their progression.  This program is particularly well-positioned for career-changers and non-traditional teaching candidates, as it is an accelerated MAT program, concluding in just 13 months, providing a $30,000 living stipend to account for the need for fulltime enrollment, and providing extensive clinical preparation through the year-long residency program.  

The Maryland Accelerates Teacher-Leader Residency Program consists of three components that together, enable transformation of the teacher career continuum in Western Maryland: 

• A MegaCommunity for systemic capacity and linkage building
• An accelerated teaching residency with year-long clinical experience
• Teacher-leader pathways with two-year induction

Special Features 

Teaching residents will be engaged in a 13-month co-teaching residency program with the following:  

1. A fully integrated curriculum to ensure content mastery; 
2. Intensive and guided practices to ensure pedagogical mastery; 
3. Innovative clinical rotations to cultivate specialized competency in classroom management; 
4. Comprehensive assessments with evidence-based microcredentials in computational thinking, cultural diversity and growth mindset, classroom management; 
5. In teaching effectiveness.  

For their first two years, these new teachers will receive:  

1. Intensive professional development in the project’s specialized competency areas; 
2. Regular and sustained coaching; and 
3. Competency-based demonstration of advancement using video-stimulated recall methodology and microcredentials in academic behavior plans, high leverage practices, and culturally responsive teaching.