States Turn to Senior Citizens for Help in
Classrooms
Stateline.org finds states launching programs to
fill mounting classroom vacancies
By Christine Vestal,
Stateline.org Staff Writer
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After a 41-year career in Maryland state government, Dorothy
Johns is a volunteer teacher’s aide at Medfield Heights
Elementary School in Baltimore. Students’ grades have gone up
and teacher turnover has gone down since Johns and others
started helping out in classrooms. Photo by Christine Vestal,
Stateline.org |
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Oct. 18, 2007 - Dorothy Johns, 74, volunteers as a
teacher’s aide at a Baltimore elementary school and says the kids help
her stay active and healthy. Elizabeth DeSell, the teacher she helps,
says she doesn’t know what she would do without her. The kids say they
like reading with Johns, and studies show their grades have improved.
They are all beneficiaries of in an inner-city
volunteer program designed to pair retired elders with schools in need
of extra help.
As baby boomers reach retirement age and begin to
leave the public schools’ teaching ranks in droves, states are launching
programs like Baltimore’s to fill mounting classroom vacancies.
Maryland, California, Virginia and other states are
recruiting retirees to work in public schools as volunteers and salaried
employees, offering boomers what they say they want — meaningful second
careers.
In Maryland, first-term Gov. Martin O’Malley (D)
plans to take the successful Baltimore program statewide. California
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) this summer launched a statewide program
that partners with high-tech companies to recruit, train and place
retiring employees in the state’s public schools. Virginia and other
states use federal money to train retirees for volunteer work in
classrooms and with students who need extra help.
The Baltimore program has improved teacher
retention, raised student scores and boosted the overall health of the
senior volunteers, according to studies by
Johns Hopkins University. It has expanded from three to 16 schools
since 1998 and now includes nearly 300 volunteers, said program director
Sylvia McGill.
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First-grade teacher Elizabeth DeSell (left) says her classroom
runs much more efficiently with the help of teacher’s aide
Dorothy Johns. Photo by Christine
Vestal, Stateline.org |
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“We need to look at
more ways older adults can share the knowledge that can only be gained
through experience as we look to develop a better skilled workforce,”
said O’Malley, who championed the
Greater Homewood Community
Corporation’s program when he was mayor of Baltimore.
Johns brings her life experience as a mother and
professional experience from a 41-year career in Maryland’s vital
statistics department to her new teaching job at Medfield Heights
Elementary School.
“I started out signing babies’ birth certificates and
now I’m back, helping the children learn,” she said. Johns works 15
hours per week in a first-grade classroom for a stipend of $112.50 every
two weeks.
DeSell is grateful to have her there. “Everyone
else is jealous,” she said, explaining that Johns not only teaches kids
to read, but helps them catch up when they miss class, works as a
proctor during standardized testing sessions and sets up classroom
activities.
Volunteer programs like Baltimore’s, based on a
non-profit model called
Experience Corps, also have been launched in 12 other states:
Arizona, California, Connecticut, Ohio, Massachusetts, Michigan,
Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Utah.
In California, Schwarzenegger recently authorized a
statewide teacher certification program called
EnCorps aimed at replacing a critical shortage of math teachers with
newly certified full- and part-time professionals who have retired from
careers in the state's technology, engineering and science industries.
California’s current teacher shortage is expected
to worsen as the school system loses some100,000 baby boomers —
one-third of the teacher workforce — over the next decade, according to
the governor’s office. The EnCorps program is aimed at helping the state
find more than 33,000 new science and math teachers.
Virginia’s volunteer teaching and mentoring program
is part of a federally funded network of volunteer projects, called
Senior Corps. Some 2,000 older volunteers there mentor special needs
students and help run before- and after-school programs, said program
specialist Jean Taylor Payne. Volunteers, who receive orientation and
periodic training, focus primarily on literacy and reading skills, Payne
said.
Nationwide, public schools are expected to lose
about a million teachers over the next decade, according to the
National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. Federally
funded programs similar to Virginia’s have so far placed more than
54,000 volunteers over age 55 in classrooms in all 50 states, according
to the
Corporation for National and Community Service, which funds the
Senior Corps program. Total grants to states last year under the program
came to $214.7 million.
Story Published Friday, Oct. 5, 2007 in
Stateline.org
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Contact Christine Vestal at
cvestal@stateline.org.
Read related stories:
>
Boomers answer call to service
>
Baby boomers augur old age, new needs
>>
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