Cal State San Marcos Joins Local Districts in Teacher-Exchange Program

Vista Unified has become the latest to join a consortium of North County school districts working to develop a teacher-training partnership with Cal State San Marcos and take advantage of the university’s faculty expertise and research.

The consortium, which also includes school districts from Poway, Ramona, San Marcos and Valley Center, is the first collaboration between the infant university and local school districts.

“It’s the beginning of a real partnership between the school districts and Cal State San Marcos,” said Robert Reeves, superintendent of Poway Unified.

Under the agreement, the school districts will choose two teachers to serve for two years on the faculty of the university’s teacher-credentialing program starting this fall. In return, the school districts will have access to the equivalent of one full-time faculty member to provide expertise in whatever areas the districts have need and that the university can offer.

The program comes at a crucial time since the university is just beginning to develop its middle-school and bilingual-teaching credential program, and the teachers selected for the program will have a large voice in the shaping the programs, said M. Stephen Lilly, dean of the college of education.

“The people who come in will act as faculty. They will teach and advise and in every way be treated as a full-time faculty member in the college of education,” Lilly said.

The college, still in its first year, only offers a credential for elementary school teaching to its 75 students.

The North County teachers, who will be employed by their school districts but assigned to the university, will set their own syllabus, teach a full load of courses and be part of the design of the curriculum, Lilly said.

“They will be there as a voice in how decisions will impact the schools,” Lilly said.

The only criteria for candidates for the program are that they be employed as a tenured teacher at one of the school districts involved, have a master’s degree and “be recognized as a highly successful, professional educator.”

Letters inviting teachers to apply for the program went out this week and Lilly said selections will be made by July 1.

“We want to choose people who are widely recognized as among the most effective teachers in the school district and we didn’t want to impose artificial criteria (such as having a doctorate, like most university faculty members) that would narrow that pool,” Lily said.

The program will cost the university $40,000, while the school districts will pitch in $4,000 each to hire replacements for the two reassigned teachers.

The teachers will spend two years at the university, after which other teachers will be selected. Each district is guaranteed to have at least one teacher spend time at the university within five years.

“It’s a shared cost arrangement with the university that we feel is really going to strengthen their program to have that constant contact with outstanding practitioners,” said Mac Bernd, superintendent of San Marcos Unified School District.

“What we get out of it is that the university program will be constantly oriented toward school districts and their needs,” Bernd said.

The school districts will also benefit by having the teachers come back to the schools to share their experience.

“We will get back people who have been exposed to the cutting edge of research and theory and they can share that when they come back,” Bernd said.

Lilly sees the programs as a way for his faculty to learn from the teachers who are practicing what the universities have been researching.

“Too often, what we have is the university believing that the fellows out there don’t have much to offer to teacher educators, and people in the schools don’t really believe the university has much to offer to the schools that can be used on a day-to-day basis,” Lilly said.

“We hope to break down both of those barriers,” Lilly said.