Program Guarantees Latinos Slots in Teacher-Credential Program

A new program aimed at encouraging Latino students to become teachers has taken on a twist by guaranteeing them slots in a crowded, post-baccalaureate teacher-credential program at Cal State San Marcos.

The Beca Foundation, a nonprofit scholarship organization based in San Marcos, is coordinating a program through Palomar College and CSSM to encourage Latino community college students to pursue teaching careers.

Although other programs in the county provide help to minority students interested in becoming teachers, including San Diego City College’s Aim to Teach program, none guarantees admittance to teacher-credential programs.

Cal State San Marcos’ credentialing program, which just completed its first year, received four times more applicants than it had available spaces for last semester.

“This is a commitment by the university to address the paramount need for minority teachers in the state of California,” said M. Stephen Lilly, dean of Cal State San Marcos’ School of Education.

Six students are scheduled to begin participating in the scholarship program next year.

The students, who will be selected by Beca, will receive annual scholarships while attending classes full-time at Palomar College. Once they have met the requirements to enter the Cal State University system, the students will be guaranteed spots at fledgling San Marcos campus, where they will take their upper-division courses.

While attending Cal State San Marcos full time, the students will continue to receive scholarships. After receiving their bachelor’s degree, the students then will be guaranteed entrance to the university’s teacher-credential program.

The Beca foundation, which last year awarded $110,000 in scholarships to Latino students throughout San Diego County, has been awarded $50,000 in matching grants from the James Irvine Foundation to offer the need- and merit-based scholarships to Latino community college students.

The program hopes to help fill a void caused by the lack of Latino teachers, both in the county and in the state.

“The proportion of Latino students is (about) 30% and expanding, and we don’t have nearly that proportion of Hispanic teachers. There’s an imbalance there, and we would like to see it much closer,” said Glen Pierson, assistant superintendent of personnel and special education at the county Office of Education.

Many Latinos who do go to college end up in fields with higher pay and more prestige than teaching, Pierson said.

The county office helped coordinate local school districts in giving priority to students participating in the project who seek to become teachers’ aides, Pierson said.

Latino students make up 28% of the county’s enrollment. Only 8% of the teachers countywide are Latino.

“Most of these students are used to dealing with negatives, saying, ‘It’s hard to do this, or that,’ and to have the positive incentive of, ‘If you do well, this is your reward,’ I think is a very good approach,” said Luz Vega, the grants program director for the Irvine Foundation.

In addition to the $50,000 matching grant, the Irvine Foundation has also committed $30,000 to hiring a coordinator for Beca’s mentor program. All students receiving Beca scholarships are matched with a businessman or woman in the county, who acts as the student’s mentor.

“The dismal rate of transfer by Latinos out of community colleges and into four-year institutions was also of great concern,” said Vega, whose foundation last year gave more than $25 million to community service programs in the state.

The 5-year-old Beca Foundation has raised $10,000 in the last month on its own, said Elmer Cameron, consultant to the foundation. Beca, which means scholarship in Spanish, has until the end of next year to raise another $40,000, which the Irvine Foundation will match.

Earlier this year, Beca also helped organize the Future Teachers Corps at Palomar College, a support group of ethnic-minority students interested in teaching careers.

“Many of these students are the first ones from their families to go through college . . . and, when you’ve been through it, you know what to expect. But, when you haven’t been through it and no one in your family has been through it, it can be very frightening,” said Beca executive director Teresa Ornelas.

Even if there were no scholarship funds, the Beca Foundation believes the support network developed by the Future Teachers program will help increase the number of ethnic-minority students who graduate from college.

“What we want to make clear to them is that, if they are Hispanic and they graduate with a teaching credential, there are opportunities for jobs out there for them,” said Jon Frandell, a Beca officer.

San Diego Unified, San Diego City College and San Diego State University operate a similar program for luring ethnic-minority students into teaching careers, but no scholarships are offered, and slots in the SDSU graduate teacher-credential program are not guaranteed.