Pasadena to Use Grant for Teacher Career Development

The Ford Foundation on Friday will announce a $508,000 grant to help the Pasadena Unified School District create an academy to give teacher candidates an alternative pathway into the classroom, to support beginning teachers and to help veteran teachers continue to grow professionally.

The academy will be developed by the district in conjunction with California State University campuses at Northridge and Dominguez Hills and the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project (LAAMP), which is helping to support school improvement efforts in districts around the county.

The university system and the Annenberg Project already are partners in the creation of professional development academies that will serve the Los Angeles and Long Beach school districts.

Those academies are being funded by a $8.3 million grant from the Weingart Foundation that was announced last month.

The goal of all three academies is to help support school improvement efforts that are being funded separately by LAAMP, which is in the second year of a five-year, $53 million countywide effort.

Laurel Wruble, a spokeswoman for LAAMP, said the Pasadena academy is to train a total of 350 teachers over the next five years.

The creation of the academy is particularly timely because, like school districts throughout California, Pasadena is participating in the state’s class size reduction program and has had to staff many classrooms with inexperienced teachers.

“At present, there is not a coherent, consistent and effective system for preparing new and experienced teachers that guarantees every student a quality teacher,” said Joseph A. Aguerrebere, the foundation’s program officer.

“This effort . . . has the potential to make a significant national contribution to how we train and develop teachers in this country.”

The academy will serve the 12 Pasadena schools now participating in LAAMP. Wruble said it is expected that the district will use its own funds to expand the academy to the remaining schools in the district.

During the rest of this year, the academy, which is to be based at Washington School in Pasadena, will hire “teacher coaches” and begin creating a course of study.

Teacher candidates will enroll in its programs beginning next fall.

To make sure the training is based on the needs of the participating schools, however, most of it will take place on those campuses.